Total posts: 3,179
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@Timid8967
-->@PGA2.0 @Stephen @TradesecretIs the reverend tradesecrete a presuppositionalist? He doesn't sound like one. Perhaps he might decide to post. I have been waiting for PGA.0.
I'm not sure about Tradesecret. I am, among many other things.
Sorry, I have been busy lately turning a storage shed into a cottage. I did not notice the thread so I will read it and get back to you in the next few days. And I do believe that people who have examined the weighty issues of life hold some form of worldview on which their basic core beliefs (those that everything else rests upon) are presupposed. We start somewhere. Those core suppositions of their worldview tends to influence how they look at most things in some way, although sometimes (often) a person acts inconsistent with their worldview.
Ronald Nash notes that Gordon Clark, in the argument for truth, identified six steps (p.162) that favour the Christian worldview of that necessary God; 1) Truth exists, it is 2) immutable, 3) eternal, 4) mental, 5) superior to the human mind, 6) God.
To your queries:
1. It is impossible to define any individual thing apart from a worldview.
Not necessarily. A person can be inconsistent with their worldview regarding some things. A worldview is a connected web of beliefs that answers questions about the important issues of life that start from basic core beliefs that everything else rests upon; ideas such as looking at life from either God, or no God, or the nature of the universe and its cause, or our causal tree and our nature and cause. Ronald Nash identified our core presuppositions as life's ultimate questions. Worldviews tend to deal with questions of existence, ontology, epistemology, axiology, and other weighty issues; questions like, Who am I? Why am I here? What difference does it make? What happens to me when I die?
Andrew Montano identifies many areas each worldview looks at, more involved than Ravi Zacharias or Ronald Nash, Greg Bahnsen, or even Cornelius Van Til. But that does not mean people cannot live inconsistently with their beginning presuppositions. For instance, if the natural realm is all there is then there is no Mind behind the universe and no ultimate meaning. So, why do strong atheists look for meaning and treat life in a meaningful manner? They are being inconsistent with such a universe because it does not reason, doesn't care about us or anything, has no purpose, mean or value.
2. At the outset Christianity is radically different than non-Christianity, on the account that to us, the most fundamental reality is personal and eternal, while in non-Christianity, the most fundamental reality is either impersonal or personal and temporal.
I agree wholeheartedly.
3. Given that fundamental difference, it follows that an atheist will obviously find Christian beliefs incoherent, because they are incoherent when defined according to his worldview from the foundation.
Maybe or maybe not incoherent depending on how well the person has investigated Christianity, but certainly not believed based on the way they gather evidence to fit with their core presuppositions. Sometimes a person once bought into Christianity but later was influenced by the secular world they mostly live with every day. With the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment man increasingly became the measure of all things.
[a] 4. This means that we can't debate over a singular belief apart from talking about the worldview that defines that belief. [b] We can't debate whether or not God exists when we're operating under different definitions of God and being itself.
[a] I agree since the issues are fundamental to how we got here and what difference that makes.
[b] There is usually a conflict there that needs us to identify what we mean or much of the time we speak past each other.
5. If you want to discuss this sincerely the first question you have to ask is "what is God?" and "what is being?", and then, having resolved that, we can talk about whether or not God exists.
Anselm of Canterbury identified God as the greatest being that can be thought of or conceived of. That certainly fits the Christian God.
6. The problem arises when you realize that in Christianity God and being are identical, and that you can't accept that. What do you do then? Then the only way to critique Christianity is to hypothetically adopt our believes and show that we're incoherent. And we'll do the same with atheism. The difference is that you will fail, while we won't.
I don't understand what you mean that God and being are identical. Yes, the Christian God is a personal Being.
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@SkepticalOne
The rules for the modern game are fixed. The fixed reference point is the game.If you think the rules of chess have become immutable (since their last change)...I don't know what to tell you. I would say the rule are stable but definitely capable of change. I guess that analogy isn't going to get us anywhere if we don't agree on that.
You made your point. Congratulations! Chess was a poor example and not the best analogy. The analogy of Chess as a unique game with unique rules that makes Chess understandable still stands. Objectively, the rules of chess only suit that game. They don't suit Checkers or Backgammon. The same with God. Objective morality only applies if God exists, and morality is something Amoranemix and Ramshutu believe is relativistic because it is continually "evolving," although Ramshutu tries to mask it as an objective "imperative." That to him seems to only apply to "the group" that adopts some standard of right or wrong, when it is obvious other groups disagree and preach the opposite standard. So, the objectivity is up in the air. The identity is lost when neither group is wrong yet both preach the opposite.
Can you give examples of qualitative and quantitative values so I can wrap my head around what you're referring to?
Norm Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, p.178, argues that to make a map (He uses Scotland in the example) and to call it better than another map, the better map would detail everything geographical more accurately. It would be scaled-down from the actual place called Scotland. In other words, there is a physical location to compare the maps. A better map would be more accurate and representative in its details as to the actual location. Both the place and the map would be quantitative in their natures. They would take from something physical and tangible and draw to scale something physical and real. That would be a quantitative value where you use something physical and measure it with something else physical. You also use descriptive means in evaluating the difference between two material things. For example, I could describe how the coast indents here or juts out there or how a river runs into the sea here and describes the river's bends and turns from its starting place in the mountains.
But how do you measure abstract ideas like the moral good against the physical? Morals are not quantitative but qualitative. A moral does not have a physical quantity to it. I can't see the physical good, can't taste it, can't feel it, can't smell it, because it is an abstract concept. So, how do you measure it against the physical? It has no physicality of its own. Not only this, when you say something is morally wrong, you are giving it a prescriptive value, a should or an ought. Hume brought up the question of how you get from an "is" to an "ought:" from the physical to the abstract or qualitative if all we are is pure physical beings. How do you compare better when you are not comparing two quantitative or physical values? Moral values that are qualitative need a measurement too. There has to be something we compare something else to or against, and in the case of morals, an unchanging standard, something that is real but abstract. If you don't have a real, unchanging "right" or "good" (the standard of comparison), then how can you say this moral value is better than another? As a relative, subjective being, if you make it up, why is that better? Better than what? Why is what you believe truer than what I think? There has to be that unchanging standard to compare moral values against, or else good become meaningless (it can mean anything). If an objective moral law does not exist, there is nothing to compare goodness to; no identity. How can you know what is wrong unless you know what is right?
His word is the objective standard, and when we do not interpret according to what He means we corrupt His meaning.[a] How can it be an objective standard if you need to interpret it? [b] ~40,000 denominations says the Bible isn't an objective standard.
[a] Because when someone (and that Someone being God) speaks we need to understand what the person says and means. If we do not interpret correctly, we have not understood His message to us or to the primary audience.
[b] Because the standard is not the 40,000 denominations but God's word, the Bible.
You think "this generation" means "that generation."Good god, man. We had that debate like 6 years ago! If you haven't figured I'm not impressed by the appeal to your own authority by now its unlikely you ever will. Suffice to say, If God wrote it why should I or anyone care what you (a.k.a "not god") thinks it is supposed to mean? Besides that, the fact that it isn't clear speaks to an omniscient being NOT being the author - and that is my point here.
Yes, we had it a long time ago, but the principle still applies. It is not my own authority I appeal to. I point to the biblical authority, and rightly so since we were debating what the Bible says. And you should only care if what I say corresponds to what He says. Then my thoughts match His authority. Plus, it IS clear. To make sense of "this generation" you have to gather which generation the Author is speaking about. That was something you failed to do. You say "any generation," which is not the case. That was my point. Unfortunately, those who judged our debates failed to take these things into consideration.
[c] I have explained to you and others many times the meanings of slavery and that God explicitly told Israel never to treat others as they were treated in EgyptYes, you have said that, but your cherry picking doesn't show the whole picture. I haven't had a good debate in a while. Maybe we can debate slavery in the bible - just a thought.
We could do, or we could debate whether God's word has a correct and clear interpretation, and what that interpretation is in regards to Eschatology. Either way, it will have to wait a few weeks. I am in the process of helping my step-son renovate a shed into a cottage, which requires building an extra room. We are also putting in a kitchen. Then there is my wife's health too, that could take a downturn at any time. So, my time is not so free at the moment.
No prophecy is to be privately interpreted.Unless you think the entire Bible is a prophecy, you're not addressing my point entirely. Secondly, people do it all the time, don't they? You need to take that up with your fellow believers.
Two-thirds of the Bible concerns prophecy, so it is no small matter. If you get it wrong the Bible becomes very contradictory, misunderstood and misinterpreted.
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@SkepticalOne
The question is, how could you move a king or queen without a game involving those concepts and with fixed rules such as Chess?There is a definite disconnect here. You are not describing reality as it is. Chess does not have fixed rules - the rules are merely stable. It provides a situation where there is no fixed reference point and we can still objectively determine right from wrong. Its the thing you say cannot exist without god. Apply it to morality and you'll have the answer you don't want. :-)
You have to have a game (Chess) to have rules for it. Without that game rules are meaningless. The rules for the modern game are fixed. The fixed reference point is the game.
We have physical verifications for quantitative values that meet a physical universal standard (IBWN). What do you use for qualitative values?Its still not making sense. What do you mean by quantitative and qualitative values? Give examples if possible.
Qualitative - that which is prescribed, abstract, non physical, cannot be physically measured.
Quantitative - able to physically measure with the five senses because of the physical nature of the thing measured, therefore descriptive.
I answered your question. You charged God with the inability to communicate with humanity.[a] I absolutely did not. I was simply pointing out a god shouldn't need humans to interpret his words for other humans. [b] I'm not interpreting or injecting meanings that aren't written into [c] the passages on slavery - you are. I'm willing to accept that if the words of the Bible are from a God, it says what he meant for it to say. [d] You seem to think it needs explanation because...what, God didn't foresee that people from 2021 would be reading it?
[a] You said more than that.
You said:
"An all-knowing, all-powerful being is incapable of clearly communicating to humanity and needs his words for humans to be explained by humans?
I don't understand you logic here. God is revealing to humans. Why would He speak in a language that humans are incapable of understanding? His word is the objective standard, and when we do not interpret according to what He means we corrupt His meaning.
[b] You are and have done so many times. I pointed out some of those instances in our debate. You think "this generation" means "that generation." You ignore the time references and the primary audience of address in coming to your debate conclusions. So, even though we are speaking of what the Bible says you make it your subjective interpretation of what the Bible says.
[c] I have explained to you and others many times the meanings of slavery and that God explicitly told Israel never to treat others as they were treated in Egypt.
[d] No prophecy is to be privately interpreted. A single verse does not create a doctrine either. We have to take the whole of Scripture into consideration when understanding biblical doctrine. We also have to take into consideration (as I already mentioned) the audience of address and how they would understand something. That is why I keep coming back to one of the passages Stephen identified in his warped theology, Matthew 16:27-28. How would a 1st-century Jew understand the reference to "coming in the Father's glory?" You would have to understand how the Father came in His glory in the OT to understand what Jesus meant.
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@Ramshutu
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2.) If [a] morality is subjective, why should it matter what we do?What makes you think it does? In fact [b] presupposing that morality exists above and external to us such that how we act “matters” in some universal sense is inherently begging the very question (again) you’re answering.[c] Why does it matter to us as individuals? We still live and exist in a society in which acting badly can impact our quality of life. [d] Just should remember that there’s a difference between morality being subjective and morality not existing, after all.Put us in the zombie apocalypse that calculus would definitely change.
[a] Don't confuse morality with a moral preference (subjectivity or relativism) that ultimately means nothing since it can mean anything a person wants to make it mean. The moral loses its identity.
[b] Presupposing objective, unchanging, morality exists is the only way to make sense of it other than by insisting on brute facts or subjective preference as right. There is no right to subjective preference unless such preference conforms to what is the case, i.e., what is right.
[c] So what? What makes that right? You use the term "badly" in reference to what? Why is what you deem bad actually so? Who are you to say? Why should I value your subjective opinions, or you justifying your subjective opinions? Unless you can show me necessarily that what you believe is actually right or true or correct I reject your whole argument. You are just like me, a relative, subjective human being. Big deal.
[d] You confuse the "is" with the "ought."
3.) Subjectivity is more than preference.[a] You are confusing subjectivity a little here by limiting its application.Taste and preference - whether I like cake or ice cream better - is subjective. But that’s a false equivalence as we don’t have as much of an inherent emotional reaction to ice cream as we do morality.[b] Compare morality to something like fear. Fear is subjective.You can be afraid of clowns, heights, falling, dogs, cats, etc; I could not.What you’re afraid of is not down to preference, but [c] experience and learned behaviour.[d] Conflating Learned behaviour and experience driving subjectivity with purely taste and preference downplays the inherent nature of the thing you’re comparing.
[a] Alternatively, you are giving subjectivity more application that it has in determining the right or moral good.
[b] Again, you confuse the is with the ought. Behaviour is what is. Moral good is what ought to be. Behaviour is something descriptive. Morality is something prescriptive, something we should do because it is right to do. One is a quantity, the other is a quality.
[c] Experience and behaviour is what is. They are descriptive terms. They describe, not prescribe. Without God, its all mechanics. It is something physical that triggers by something else physical, the reaction or the rote or habit of reacting in a particular way. Furthermore, if all we are is biological mechanism how can you say what one biological mechanism does is any BETTER than what another biological mechanism does?
[d] I don't understand what you are driving at here.
Perfect love drives out fear.
4.) [a] Gods Morality is not objective either.[b] Simply declaring God as the source of morality, then giving up doesn’t really solve the problem.[c] If God arbitrarily declared murder is immoral; he could just have easily have declared that murder is fine, and eating with your mouth full was immoral.That means morality is just as arbitrary and subjective as what you’re attacking in Atheism, no?If God has simply arbitrarily declared murder is wrong - why does it matter if we murder people? Without an objective imperative - which arbitrarily declaring sets of behaviours as good or bad, there’s no reason for any given moral standard at all.[d] If God didn’t arbitrarily declare murder is wrong - then that implies that morality and ethics is external to God.[e] Indeed simply invoking a deity and declaring that they made morality isn’t an explanation of anything - it’s an absence of an explanation.[f] The reality is fairly clear though, one of our explanations boils down to an objective imperative, explains the nature of human moral experience; one of us is postulating an arbitrary moral standard that is invoked without explanation or necessity; with no objective foundation.
[a] Yes, it is. His nature is all knowing. He knows what hurts and what helps. Subjective human beings are lost in their relativism and don't always recognize the difference between harm and help. Many human beings believe that they are helping when they condone abortion, but they neglect what they are killing.
[b] The biblical God has what is NECESSARY for morality, and such a God is said to reveal, per the Bible. The justification or evidence for the biblical God is far greater and logical than any other said gods.
[c] God does not arbitrarily declare. Morality is not external to God. Morality is based on His unchanging, loving nature. You keep assuming many things about God. What is your justification to do so?
[d] No, that is not necessarily what it implies. God does what is in His nature to do. Knowing all things, His nature is loving. Love does not murder the innocent. If God takes an innocent life He then restores it to a better existence, one devoid of evil. Evil is what human beings do when they ignore God's goodness. The Ten Commandments reveal what should and should not be done as an objective source for human morality.
[e] I invoke what is necessary for morality - the Judeo-Christian God. I understand you do not like that and want to fight it tooth and claw. You want to base morality on your subjective preferences or those of others. Why are your subjective preferences any BETTER than those of others who oppose your views? Again, because you like or prefer your views? Big deal.
[f] Here I agree with you! You are imposing an arbitrary moral standard on me that is devoid of sufficient explanation. It boils down to you or others, in your relativism, playing God and decreeing what SHOULD be without the moral authority to do so.
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@Ramshutu
We evolved as part of a social mammals. Evolution of individuals dependent on social groups is a balance between individual and group needs. To prevent individual needs overriding the group and harming everyone’s collective chances of survival; individuals need to be motivated to prevent themselves or others from harming the group.
Thank you for your three thumbs up (to date) post!
So, what you are saying is that if a group promotes the killing of some of its members, based on race, that's okay. It's a group thing. How about the marginalizing of a group, or even its dehumanization? Is that okay as long as the majority support the idea?
To this end; what we experience as “morality” is the learned emotional response that helps drives behaviour to conform to the groups ideals, and want to punish others that don’t.
Right now, in what I presume to be your country, the USA, the majority group collective forms the opinion (through emotional investment and response) that all white people are collectively evil in that they promote/d black slavery and discrimination. What about the discrimination happening to these whites? Is that okay in your subjective books? Thus, we witness the justification of pummeling and demeaning this group, white people, and targeting them similar to the Nazis targeted the Jews which lead to their dehumanization by the majority group(s) and those in power.
As the article points out, what was done to black people forty years ago is now being done to white people and conservatives. This is evilness personified. We should not be making these kinds of divisions to win political votes and push an evil agenda, IMO. All human beings are equally valid, not just the BLM. What is being done to the police is also criminal (literally).
Furthermore, how can you justify something as good if there is no fixed identity for goodness, just made up by one group in reaction to their emotions that opposes another group?
That is an objective imperative that leads to learned subjective moral systems and does not necessitate the need for any deity.
You presume that subjective moral systems are good/sound because some subjective individual or group push their social preference. Again, I ask, logically, how can two opposing belief systems be "right" or true/correct regarding the same thing??? For one group, good is raping women, and for another, the "good" prevents such an occurrence. In Mexico, the drug cartels think it is good to make money by exploiting the border situation. The human traffickers believe it is perfectly justifiable to rape women. Does that make it so because emotionally, they identify with the need to do so? Only right for the small group or segment of that society, or NOT? Why do most Democrats in the USA tolerate this kind of behaviour if it is so wrong? They turn a blind eye to the evils that go on, and how can they call such a thing evil if the majority group condones such behaviour? And I could go through history listing such moral atrocity that you say depends on the subjective group like or preference = the good. Your system of subjective and personal morality does not work because it begs one subjective preference over another. How can you tie down the good when you have such conflict and no objective, ultimate, unchanging reference point?
Answer: You can't.
Group preference is not an objective imperative. It is a subjective imperative of which might makes "right." Might making right is what dictators, oligarchs, and those in power do to the rest when they can't explain what morality is and why it matters. They force their preference on others.
To follow up on a few points:1.) Morality appears subjective.What you experience as moral drive is dependent on where and when you lived. [a] Humans at various times have been fine with murder, slavery, infanticide, rape, genocide, etc - and that’s in the Bible - the place where your objective unchanging moral standard is written.
Why should I believe your subjective and limited opinion? Establish morality from the best. What is the best? You can't have it where subjective morals are concerned. It is always "evolving" to a new better without the possibility of ever reaching the best. You can't reach the best because you have no reference point of what is best. It is all made up of those in power or those with the biggest or most influential group. They foyster their subjective beliefs on others. (Please, forgive my rant and indignation, but why SHOULD I believe your view? And how do you get an "ought" from an "is?")
So, based on morality being conditional on where you live, would you say that it is good to rape innocent human beings for some?
And how do you explain a society believing at one time that adultery or abortion was evil and wrong and then the same culture, thinking it is good and morally permissible? Which value is the actual value (and good)? Is abortion good, or is it evil? You have no fixed identity, making it senseless.
So, based on morality being conditional on where you live, would you say that it is good to rape innocent human beings for some?
And how do you explain a society believing at one time that adultery or abortion was evil and wrong and then the same culture, thinking it is good and morally permissible? Which value is the actual value (and good)? Is abortion good, or is it evil? You have no fixed identity, making it senseless.
You can even take individuals who are moral, and place them in a scenario where they have power over others - and you can change their moral decision making.
Moral in whose opinion? Why SHOULD I believe your opinion when it opposes mine?
[a] Nothing at all, in any aspect of human behaviour even whispers that a universal objective moral standard exists - [b] everything screams that it’s learned/taught and influenced behaviour based on social groups. And you can’t suggest otherwise unless you want to beg the question and assert that behaviour of those in the 1st century that they considered valid and moral was actually truly “immoral” by some objective or singular standard.
[a] It most certainly does. The fact is that all humans who are capable of thinking about morality identify right and wrong. We all are offended when a moral injustice is perpetrated upon us or those we love. If there is no objective moral standard then morality cannot be made sense of, so why the moral indignation when someone beats up a persons innocent child or kills them?
[b] Not necessarily. It is also explained as a God given conscience that differentiates between good and evil. That is the side that you choose to ignore or explain away, probably because of your worldview commitment. Most thinking human beings at some time in their life contemplate God and wrestle with the meaning and purpose of life. The popular paradigm usually wins out. Atheism is in fashion or as the Bible puts it,
Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.
People can be like sheep lead astray by wolves, jumping from wolf to wolf because they have no Shepherd, no ultimate point of reference. They create their own meaning and purpose in what they perceive (without God) is a meaningless universe.
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@SkepticalOne
@Amoranemix
Post 1289:
So, is that only your specific god or just any god in general? ...and how do you know god is not a meaning you've manufactured?Because of the contradictory nature of different gods there can only be one true and living God.[a] This answer is so incomplete it is wrong. Its true some god concepts contradict and cannot be true at the same time. [b] However, not all god concepts are mutually exclusive and [c] they could be true at the same time. [d] Additionally, there could be one god ...or no gods. If your reasoning for the existence of the Christian god is 'no other option is logically possible', you're in for a rude awakening, my friend.
[a] Are you saying that the 'gods' of the New Age Movement are the same God of Scripture? They contradict each other.
Are you saying the god Muslims believe in is the same God of Christianity or Judaism? Again, although they all source the same God, they have different concepts of Him, contradictory ones. I have books that go into the conflicting nature of what Islam and Christianity believe about God and Jesus. Islam denies Jesus is God incarnate.
Are you saying the gods of other religions are the same as the God of Christianity? Comparing the teachings counters such claims.
Are you saying the god of Mormonism or the JW's is the same as the biblical God?
[b] I believe they are contradictory to the Judeo-Christian God, and they all claim some exclusivity. The biblical revelation of God claims He is the one and only true God. The NT biblical revelation claims there is only ONE WAY to God, through the means God has given --> His Son. The OT revelation claims one way of salvation according to that covenant, via works. The NT claims that works are insufficient, and it is by God's grace alone that we are saved.
Are you saying the god Muslims believe in is the same God of Christianity or Judaism? Again, although they all source the same God, they have different concepts of Him, contradictory ones. I have books that go into the conflicting nature of what Islam and Christianity believe about God and Jesus. Islam denies Jesus is God incarnate.
Are you saying the gods of other religions are the same as the God of Christianity? Comparing the teachings counters such claims.
Are you saying the god of Mormonism or the JW's is the same as the biblical God?
[b] I believe they are contradictory to the Judeo-Christian God, and they all claim some exclusivity. The biblical revelation of God claims He is the one and only true God. The NT biblical revelation claims there is only ONE WAY to God, through the means God has given --> His Son. The OT revelation claims one way of salvation according to that covenant, via works. The NT claims that works are insufficient, and it is by God's grace alone that we are saved.
Bahaism teaches that all major religions are progressive manifestations of God (kind of like blind men touch an elephant and each saying it is something else rather than what it actually is) but of course, their revelation is the most recent and trusted, thus once again their exclusivity is taught.
[c] Two contrary things cannot logically both be true at the same time.
[d] More to the point, which is it? It can only be one or the other. How would you know there is no God? I say, make sense of existence without first presupposing God. I say you can't, however much you claim you can. Or is it that you don't care? You appear to care. You vehemently oppose what I say.
[c] Two contrary things cannot logically both be true at the same time.
[d] More to the point, which is it? It can only be one or the other. How would you know there is no God? I say, make sense of existence without first presupposing God. I say you can't, however much you claim you can. Or is it that you don't care? You appear to care. You vehemently oppose what I say.
The Judeo-Christian God is the only God I defend against attack, not that He needs defending, but because the message is worth telling and gives meaning to the lives of those who will believe because of the message/His revelation.First, this doesn't explain how the basis of meaning in your life (god) is not a manufactured meaning. I mean, it is the very thing you seem to despise in other foundations: subjective.
I recognize my limitations to an extent. That is why I see the necessity in God setting the record straight. What is the plumb line or blueprint you go by? Why should I believe your subjective reference point? I point to something and, more precisely, Someone beyond my limited self, which is necessary. You are not needed in determining what the actual case is. You don't even know what the case is. In past conversations, you have pleaded ignorance and the "I don't know." Your credibility is not something I trust.
Secondly, a 'message that gives meaning' could be applied to innumerable things and is not a strong justification for preferring one over another.
Meaning with morality has to have an ultimate fixed reference point to be anything other than preference. What makes your preference good or right?
And, if the meaning is something that you manufacture just for this lifetime (in a Universe that is cold and indifferent because there is no personal agency behind it), what makes your meaning any better than mine if we disagree on values? If a person believes raping and stealing gives their life meaning and you don't, why does your belief hold more credibility than theirs? If meaning is just a human construct governed by our genes, society, environment, experience, and macroevolutionary educational indoctrination, how is your belief "better?" Amoranemix (Post 1286) lists, "[i] genes, [ii] education, [iii] life experience and the [iv] environment." There is no ultimate reason I should conform to your meaning in such a Universe, especially if evolution is at play. You give all kinds of human traits and personal abilities to the evolutionary process. How does it direct anything? You and your kind of thinking say it can.
Wow, thanks, Amoranemix! You are so highly evolved that you should teach me!
Why would you expect my genetic makeup to mimic yours? What is governing how I am made? Is it blind indifferent chance happenstance that you have acquiring or given all kinds of personal agency and intention to and now call evolution? Does that make sense to you? Start at the beginning and explain how this all happens, will you?
And, if the meaning is something that you manufacture just for this lifetime (in a Universe that is cold and indifferent because there is no personal agency behind it), what makes your meaning any better than mine if we disagree on values? If a person believes raping and stealing gives their life meaning and you don't, why does your belief hold more credibility than theirs? If meaning is just a human construct governed by our genes, society, environment, experience, and macroevolutionary educational indoctrination, how is your belief "better?" Amoranemix (Post 1286) lists, "[i] genes, [ii] education, [iii] life experience and the [iv] environment." There is no ultimate reason I should conform to your meaning in such a Universe, especially if evolution is at play. You give all kinds of human traits and personal abilities to the evolutionary process. How does it direct anything? You and your kind of thinking say it can.
Wow, thanks, Amoranemix! You are so highly evolved that you should teach me!
Why would you expect my genetic makeup to mimic yours? What is governing how I am made? Is it blind indifferent chance happenstance that you have acquiring or given all kinds of personal agency and intention to and now call evolution? Does that make sense to you? Start at the beginning and explain how this all happens, will you?
How is something that is not personal lead to personal beings?
How is something that is devoid of intelligence lead to intelligent beings?
How does something that has no purpose cause purpose?
How does something without meaning cause meaningful beings?
How does something without intent or agency sustain anything?
You believe it can. I say you are gullible to believe such carp.
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@SkepticalOne
Okay, I grant that some chess rules changed [...]The question is how would something be wrong for everyone if there were no moral absolute, no final reference point or court of appeal?'The question is how would moving a king like a queen be wrong if there were no chess absolute, no final reference point or court of appeal? ...oh wait, there is none of that in chess and we still know it is wrong according to the unfixed rules. The answer to your question is provided by the chess analogy you're torturing. ...poor little guy. :-p
The question is, how could you move a king or queen without a game involving those concepts and with fixed rules such as Chess? Would each person invent a new game every time that sat down in front of a chessboard? The game of Chess started with rules that changed later. You had to have the game to alter the rules. There is universality in how to play the modern game we call Chess.
There is universality in what we call Chess. It is not backgammon or checkers, and it does not share those rules. Likewise, with morality, God laid down the rules of morality in the Ten Commandments. They are an appeal by humans to universal, objective, fixed laws of moral conduct. The six rules that deal with humanity are generally considered wrong to some extent in most cultures, despite Hollywood glorifying adultery and murder and every other vice. Hollywood glorifying these vices has affected how people think about such evils, but they are still wrong because God in His wisdom recognizes how they hurt people and how they are not loving. The same goes for Academia and the media. They brainwash people into what they "should" believe. God, in His nature, reflects what is good and right. These vices mentioned disagree with the goodness of God. That brings up the question of standards and why two opposing human standards on the same issue are equally considered correct, depending on which view one holds. How can that be? How can you have objective universal values without a fixed standard of appeal? How does that come from relative human beings other than by claiming brute fact or imposing their views on others by force? How does either make something right? It just makes it mandatory that you do it unless you have the power to oppose it. You avoided my questioning in my last post yet again on this matter.
Here are my questions to you again:
1) The question is, how would something be wrong for everyone if there were no moral absolute, no final reference point or court of appeal?
Remember, you said, "Ok, you're arguing things humans have come up with can be an objective reference? How do you think this is different tha[n] what I've been saying all along?
2) I'm asking for your objective qualitative reference point. You say there can be one without God. I ask what that is. Let's test its objectivity.
There is universality in what we call Chess. It is not backgammon or checkers, and it does not share those rules. Likewise, with morality, God laid down the rules of morality in the Ten Commandments. They are an appeal by humans to universal, objective, fixed laws of moral conduct. The six rules that deal with humanity are generally considered wrong to some extent in most cultures, despite Hollywood glorifying adultery and murder and every other vice. Hollywood glorifying these vices has affected how people think about such evils, but they are still wrong because God in His wisdom recognizes how they hurt people and how they are not loving. The same goes for Academia and the media. They brainwash people into what they "should" believe. God, in His nature, reflects what is good and right. These vices mentioned disagree with the goodness of God. That brings up the question of standards and why two opposing human standards on the same issue are equally considered correct, depending on which view one holds. How can that be? How can you have objective universal values without a fixed standard of appeal? How does that come from relative human beings other than by claiming brute fact or imposing their views on others by force? How does either make something right? It just makes it mandatory that you do it unless you have the power to oppose it. You avoided my questioning in my last post yet again on this matter.
Here are my questions to you again:
1) The question is, how would something be wrong for everyone if there were no moral absolute, no final reference point or court of appeal?
Remember, you said, "Ok, you're arguing things humans have come up with can be an objective reference? How do you think this is different tha[n] what I've been saying all along?
2) I'm asking for your objective qualitative reference point. You say there can be one without God. I ask what that is. Let's test its objectivity.
[a] Quantitatively, yes. How do you do that qualitatively without God?[b] I'm asking for your objective qualitative reference point. You say there can be one without God. I ask what that is. Let's test its objectivity.[a] What is this supposed to mean? Keep it short and sweet, please.
We have physical verifications for quantitative values that meet a physical universal standard (IBWN). What do you use for qualitative values?
[b] What [a] said.
How does your opinion or preference qualify as objective and universal. Show me you have a universal refer point for qualitative values that makes sense of them.
An all-knowing, all-powerful being is incapable of clearly communicating to humanity and needs his words for humans to be explained by humans?No, I argue that you are incapable of rightly interpreting His word, because of the noetic effect and your natural bias.Either you're not human or you didn't grasp the question.... want to try again?
I answered your question. You charged God with the inability to communicate with humanity. Your bias is loud and clear. I charge you with not correctly understanding His revelation because of your confirmation bias and the indoctrination of your thinking into such a view as the one you currently hold. You scrapped the Christian worldview first for agnosticism, then atheism, then for your Flying Spaghetti Monster or some other crazy, far-out view. I gave you examples of how you butchered Scripture by your eisegesis in our debates. You go against what Scripture reveals in 2 Timothy 2:15 and 2 Timothy 3:16 as to there being a correct interpretation.
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@Tradesecret
it is good to see you are holding up the fort. Stephen has got no clue to anything you put up. It must really frustrate him that you have so much knowledge that he cannot possibly counter.Keep up the good work.
It is good to know someone else understands this! He is clueless as to the depth of biblical prophecy.
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@SkepticalOne
You have not shown a relative reference point can make sense of itself as anything other than brute force, Skep.So, a good move in chess (according to rules we made up) doesn't make sense? I think the problem is [a] you have a particular answer in your head, and if someone doesn't agree then they must be wrong.The game was designed with specific rules [...]Again you argue my point - the chess we play today doesn't use the same rules as the first chess game. The rules are not fixed and we can still use them as a standard.
Okay, I grant that some chess rules changed on an 8 X 8 board in 1450 to our modern game version. Chess, in its modern form, what you and I know as chess, has universally recognized rules for the game that we appeal to when we look up the rules of the game. Chess in the 6th century in India did not have the exact same rules we now play. The rules were different. The modern version was derived from the ancient game. To play that game you have to abide by its rules. Chess today is derived from its earlier version. Someone made a new version using some of those rules, yes. To play the modern game you have to abide by its rules, just like 3D chess has different rules from normal modern chess. To play that chess game you have to abide by its rules. The basics are fixed.
The analogy of Chess to the Ten Commandments or to God is that there are different moral rules, just like there are different games of chess. Each game has specific rules like each commandment has a different and specific meaning.
Thus, the game we play today (on an 8 X 8 board) recognized as having sixteen pieces per side has universal rules that apply to everyone playing normal chess on an 8 X 8 board, as sanctioned by the FIDE and other chess organizations. I'm not speaking of 3D chess, which has its own set of rules, or some other variant in which people get creative and make up their own rules, nor of the different time restrictions depending on whether one plays speed chess, tournament chess, or a friendly game.
With Chess, the original game had rules that were modified by those who came later, just like Christians argue that God gave rules of morality that were modified by societies and those who came later. But we can point to the final objective reference point, the Ten Commandments/God, like we can point to the final objective reference point --> Chess. Each of the Ten Commandments conveys a specific truth to it. The Ten Commandments (at least the six that apply to our human relationship) is the moral compass that moral laws are built upon by societies. Most societies recognize murder is wrong, as they do adultery, or stealing. With the Fall they do not recognize or abide by so much the commandments that deal with God.
The question is how would something be wrong for everyone if there were no moral absolute, no final reference point or court of appeal?
Once again, Magnetic north points to a specific location, TRUE North.If you're trying to equate "God" to "true north" you're undermining your argument while fortifying mine. True north is a point on Earth we decided was important.I like the analogies. I am establishing that there are objective references we can know. Magnetic north has to be based on true north, and true north is a specific location. You can't have a true North unless there is such a place, just like you can't have a city called London, England located in Sidney, Australia. If you flew from New York to London you would not land up in Sidney.[a] Ok, you're arguing things humans have come up with can be an objective reference? [b] How do you think this is different that what I've been saying all along?
[a] Quantitatively, yes. How do you do that qualitatively without God? True north is a specific quantitative point on the earth. Magnetic north points in the general direction of true north. Magnetic north is a way of finding true north or the exact location.
[b] I'm asking for your objective qualitative reference point. You say there can be one without God. I ask what that is. Let's test its objectivity.
I supplied a plain reading of the text which has the god of the Bible condoning humans owning humans in perpetuity. We can either accept the words of the Bible OR human interpretations of the "Word of God".I explained to you that God never condoned the type of slavery practiced in Egypt. The text you supplied has to be understood in relationship to what it meant in the ANE AND IN CONTEXT to Old Covenant Israel.An all-knowing, all-powerful being is incapable of clearly communicating to humanity and needs his words for humans to be explained by humans?
No, I argue that you are incapable of rightly interpreting His word, because of the noetic effect and your natural bias. How can you who are not spiritual speak of spiritual things without getting mixed up? You demonstrated in our debates that you can't understand basic hermeneutics and proper exegesis. You do not understand what "this generation" means in relation to the audience of address. You and Stephen are in the same boat.
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@Stephen
@Timid8967
Post 332:
So staying with the theme of my thread, Do you accept PGA 2.0's version of events concerning Jesus' return in 66-70 ADNope...................................... Comments David v. PeanutHut.CommentsThat's more like it.I too also mentioned the other signs that were supposed to accompany the second coming #1 Stephen "[a] “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened Matthew24:25-34.But of course you didn't pick up on that point simply because it was me that pointed it out in my first post. [b] I also mentioned Mathew 24:6-7 as further signs that we "are also look for" as told by the Christ, but that too you have over looked simply because it was I that brought it this argument.[c] And I like YOU , I too was stating only and exactly that which the Christ in THE BIBLE STATES himself! But you couldn't come onto this tread and agree with me could you? Even though I have stated not just directly from the BIBLE , but what I have said also appears to be in agreement with the author in your own link, the Comments David v. PeanutHut.
[a] I addressed this verse many times, including in my last two posts, 340, 341. You can't justify these things not happening for you are told in the epistles many of these things have happened as well as having extra biblical historical records, such as Josephus.
[b] Matthew 24:6-7 (NASB)
6 And you will be hearing of [i] wars and rumors of wars. See that [ii] you are not alarmed, [iii] for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7 [iv] For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
[i] Josephus wrote about the Jewish wars.
The works of Josephus are major sources of our understanding of Jewish life and history during the first century.[67]
The works of Josephus translated by Thomas Lodge (1602).
- (c. 75) War of the Jews, The Jewish War, Jewish Wars, or History of the Jewish War (commonly abbreviated JW, BJ or War Josephus - Wikipedia
[ii] The "you" spoken of in context is the 1st-century inner group of disciples.
[iii] What end? Those things took place before the destruction of the temple and the END of the OT age, per Matthew 24:1-3.
[iv] Again, recorded by Josephus.
The evidence speaks against your points.
[c] The whole problem is that you do not understand the nature of the Second Coming. The evidence is overwhelming that what was meant to happen happened, confirming Jesus did come in AD 70 at the destruction of the city and temple, as He said He would. Your bias stops you from considering the truth of the coming. You still have never explained what it meant to come in the glory of the Father. What does that mean? I have shown that the OT records passage after passage in which God is present in glory, and it is never a physical manifestation of God. I have explained to you that when Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after His resurrection, a cloud hid Him from their sight. That cloud represented God manifesting Himself in His glory.
I also showed you with a number of OT verses that when God manifest Himself in His glory at times it was in judgment and the cloud references are metaphorical of judgment in the OT. You are completely silent on exegeting these passages because they do not serve your made up narrative and bias.
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@fauxlaw
Continue:
[d] What you are suggesting is that everything between the bookmarks of "this generation" in Matthew 23:36 and Matthew 24:34 speak of different generations. Can you show me where Jesus is speaking of another generation where ever He speaks of "this generation" anywhere else in the gospels besides what you claim in Matthew 24:34? Here are all the passages:
“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to the other children,
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
Then it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they come in and live there; and the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
You say another generation. How? What are the indicators???
Sighing deeply in His spirit, He *said, “Why does this generation demand a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation!”
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
“To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
[ The Sign of Jonah ] Now as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it demands a sign, and so no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.’
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.
Which generation. 1st-century or otherwise?
So, when Jesus says "this generation" does it mean this and that generation? Is that what this means?
[e] How can you say from verse 3 onwards speaks of a different generation??? Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 are all regarding the Olivet discourse. You term "His disciples" into generic disciples instead of the twelve. Nowhere can you make His disciples mean generic disciples in the Olivet Discourse context.
Luke 21:7 They asked Him questions, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the [i]sign when these things are about to take place?” 8 And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them.
They asked Him, past tense. You ignore the tense and audience of address as well as who the pronouns refer back to. V. 8, who does the "you refer back to?
Mark 13 is even more specific, identifying who the disciples were:
3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, [c]James, John, and Andrew were questioning Him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things come about, and what will be the [d]sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled?” 5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.
Again, when you do not compare the synoptic gospels you can read things into a verse that is not taught in Scripture. Scripture identifies the disciples Jesus is speaking with, and it is His band of twelve. They come to Him privately and ask Him about the temple being torn down.
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@fauxlaw
[audible sigh][a] And that, my friend, is why I so oppose the citation of single verses, which inevitably draws them out of context. What is the whole of the fourth chapter all about? When is the context of every mention of Jesus and his words to the disciples and apostles, and, virtually all within the sound of his mortal voice, before his crucifixion and accomplishment of his propitiation for mankind? During his mortal life, not by his second coming allegedly to have already happened. No. His mortal existence, brief as it was among them. [b] We still await his coming in the flesh again, as he promised numerous times, but has yet to fulfill.[c] Try reading Mathew 24, the entire chapter, once again, and get the feel of that chapter's context in time. [d] Don't begin at verse 34, ignoring all that precedes it. That verse speaks to "this generation," and everyone assumes Jesus speaks of that first century CE generation. No, it is not. [e] The previous verses, from verse 3, describe another generation, a future generation. It has not yet happened, even now; we still await the signs...
Sorry, I believe I missed this post.
[a] In reference to what verse and chapter? I will assume you mean 1 John 4?
The chapter speaks of different things. The specific context is about testing the spirit to see if the spirit is from God, and every spirit that says Jesus has not come in the flesh is not from God. God's Spirit is in those who confess that Jesus came in the flesh. Someone born of God has the Spirit of God working with their spirit to transform them. They don't deny the bodily coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who deny the bodily coming of Jesus such as the Gnostics are preaching a different Jesus.
Testing the Spirits
4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; the one who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; the one who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
[b] Where did He promise to come AGAIN in the flesh? He was raised in the flesh three days after His crucifixion and stayed with them for forty days, then was taken into heaven and into His kingdom. He promised to come in the glory of the Father when He came again. How did the Father manifest Himself in glory?
[c] There were no chapter divisions when the Gospels were written to the early churches. That came later. Chapter 24 is a furtherance of Chapter 23 in which Jesus pronounced judgment in that generation to the Scribes and Pharisees with His eight woes, those teachers of the Law. He warns them, just as He does the people (through the disciples) in Matthew 24 that "this generation" of these Scribes and Pharisees will not pass away until everything in the Law is accomplished.
Matthew 23:31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are [aa]sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 [ab]Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers.
Matthew 23:34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the [ag]temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
And to make Himself clearer, Jesus after walking away from the Temple Mount in answer to His DISCIPLES said,
“Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”
You can't impose an audience that does damage to the true meaning of the text like you are doing. Here is the greater context, following Chapter 23.
24 Jesus left the temple area and was going on His way [a]when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2 But He responded and said to THEM, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”
3 And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when (1) will these things happen, and (2) what will be the sign of Your coming, and of (3) the [b]end of the age?”
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one [c]misleads you...
3 And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when (1) will these things happen, and (2) what will be the sign of Your coming, and of (3) the [b]end of the age?”
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one [c]misleads you...
The whole context of Matthew 24:4 onwards in in relation to what Jesus tells His disciples about what was going to happen to OT Israel.
THE TIME is CLEAR. "This generation" refers to the generation Jesus is speaking too. You can't read it otherwise without violating the text through eisegesis. You are creating a private, or personal interpretation and doing damage to God's word.
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@ludofl3x
I do not believe it is the case. I do not believe we could make sense of anything, ultimately, if this was the case. I believe it is impossible. Thus, prove otherwise. You know you can't.Should I expect silence from my enquiry and questions yet again, as per usual?I know you don't believe that's the case, I'm asking you to engage in a hypothetical. It can't be so vexing that you cannot even IMAGINE the circumstance, can it? I don't hve to prove anything, I'm just asking you how you think your life would be different if "life were just a freak of nature, an accident, happenstance." What would that mean to how you live your life?
Hypotheticals are opinions based on something that has not happened. First show me that God does not exist. You can't, whereas I can give you reasonable evidence He does. Without His existence you can't make sense of life, as you admit below..."Don't know, don't know, and I don't expect to find reason..." The funny thing is, you do find all kinds of reasons. A worldview that doesn't know how we got here wants to pontificate what likely is and is not the case. That is how weak your position is. It does not have what is NECESSARY to make sense of existence. God is a sufficient explanation. Chance happenstance is not.
Should I expect silence from my enquiry and questions yet again, as per usual?No, you should expect the same answers. Watch:Now, what would be the implications of existence without God? Anything goes. Why would you expect uniformity of nature, things to continue and be sustained? There would be no reason for these things happening.Exactly. I don't see what the problem is.
No problem? You exist but don't know why. Morals exist but you don't know why.
Regarding morality, the problem - anything goes. You just make it up as you make up morality. How can you say some things are wrong then if anything goes???????????????????????????????????????????
With uniformity of nature, why would you expect things to continue to be sustained repeatedly without intent or purpose behind their functioning? NO REASON, right?
For the atheist, why does anything exist at all?Don't know. Explain why this matters.
It matters if there is real meaning. If not, it should not matter what anyone does. It would be just one biological machine operating according to how its DNA and environment determines it will operate. Why are you living inconsistently with that premise? Why does it matter when someone kills innocent human beings, or does it to you? If there is no moral absolute how can you say it is wrong in what one human being does to another? Because someone made up some arbitrary rules, yet someone made the the opposite rules? Which would be right is there is no fixed reference point? You lose the identity of what is right or wrong if everything is relative and changing. Will you admit to that or will you explain how two opposites can both be right and true. Go ahead.
I can't understand how there can be a reason because matter devoid of personal being is unable to reason. Thus, the atheist cannot make sense of existence.So because you can't understand the other argument, yours must be correct: this is the literal definition of arguing from personal incredulity.
Please read my sentence again. I understand your argument. I just can't understand how you can justify or make sense of reason or morality when you peel back the facade of atheism and find out what makes it tick - relative personal opinion governed in the causal tree by chance happenstance. By virtue of reason, my explanation makes sense over yours. From necessary personal, intelligent, mindful, reasoning being comes contingent personal, intelligent, mindful, reasoning beings. And what do we witness? We witness person beings deriving their existence from other personal beings. So, as I continually point out, you are being inconsistent with your starting points. I am not. I can make sense of things because of where I start. You cannot.
Thus, the atheist cannot make sense of existence.Explain what this means and, crucially, why it's so critical: to make sense of the entirety of all of existence in order to make a conclusion other than yours. Yours makes no sense of existence either, you SAY it does, but it only adds "because of GOd" instead of "I don't know." All I'm asking you to do is demonstrate you're right. NOT THAT YOU DON'T THINK I'M RIGHT.
It means that from your starting point, blind indifferent, random chance happenstance (as opposed to intentional mindful personal Being) nothing should make sense. There would be no reason for uniformity of nature, required in the scientific endeavour. Something happening over and over again in the same manner needs intent and agency. So otherwise. With chance happenstance there is no agency, no meaning, no purpose, no reason. Things just happen. It is counter intuitive to what we actually witness. Randomly rolling a dice a million times expecting the same result every time without them being fixed is absurd and you can't show me this taking place in the real world. Yet you expect me to believe this happens in "Nature," or that "Nature" directs such a process. You expect that given enough time (the magic ingredient) anything is possible.
Then, with cause and effect, what is the cause of the known universe if the universe began to exist? Explain that to me with something other than speculation. You can't. God is a better explanation. God makes sense. What you offer or have offered does not.
How would something unreasoning sustain anything? Why would the universe come into existence and how? And if you do, per chance, find a reason, why would you expect to in an unintelligent universe???[a] Don't know, don't know, and I don't expect to find reason in the universe. [b] I make it for myself. There, all questions answered. Now answer mine.
[a] Exactly, you don't know, can't justify, and don't have what it takes to make sense of the universe, and you don't seem to care.
[b] It boils down to why are your subjective opinions valid (it is just one of a myriad), and if you don't know, don't lump me into that category too. God has revealed, otherwise I would be in your boat, up the river without a paddle at the mercy of whichever way others wanted to direct me for no good reason.
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@SkepticalOne
You have not shown a relative reference point can make sense of itself as anything other than brute force, Skep.So, a good move in chess (according to rules we made up) doesn't make sense? I think the problem is [a] you have a particular answer in your head, and if someone doesn't agree then they must be wrong.
The game was designed with specific rules, whether you or I make up additional rules or not. You are not playing chess according to the long established rules if you do not follow the specific rules of the game (you're cheating or making up your own game). A good move is one that gains advantage and puts pressure on the opponents position and pieces.
[a] It is more to the fact that you have a specific answer in your head and if my reply does not abide by your subjective opinion you try to make black seem like white when the opposite is true. Conventional Chess is a game with specific rules. Each piece can only move in a specific fashion. A knight can only move two and one squares or one and two squares. A bishop can only move along its own diagonal. A pawn can only move one or two squares on the opening and then one square after that. The knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces. A king can only move one square in any direction. The aim of the game is specific. A king must move to a different square once it is in check. Once the king is in a position where it is in check and it cannot move to any other square without being captured (checkmate), the game is over. The game is won when this happens. So, to play chess, you must follow the various rules. They are objective rules, not subjective. You must conform to the rules if you play that specific game.
The answer I've given makes perfect sense.
No. You are trying to dodge the obvious.
Once again, Magnetic north points to a specific location, TRUE North.If you're trying to equate "God" to "true north" you're undermining your argument while fortifying mine. True north is a point on Earth we decided was important.
I like the analogies. I am establishing that there are objective references we can know. Magnetic north has to be based on true north, and true north is a specific location. You can't have a true North unless there is such a place, just like you can't have a city called London, England located in Sidney, Australia. If you flew from New York to London you would not land up in Sidney.
2. You yourself cannot show you have a fixed, unchanging reference point:
- If the god of the Bible were real, he would not be unchanging (unless he still condoned slavery, genocide, and a world absent rainbows). Plus, even if the god of the Bible were immutable, his existence can't be established.
Nope, you are suggesting the biblical God condones slavery. That is not the case, and I spent a great deal of time and effort to establish that with references to biblical text. I also showed how God used a nation to bring judgment on another for the evil done.I supplied a plain reading of the text which has the god of the Bible condoning humans owning humans in perpetuity. We can either accept the words of the Bible OR human interpretations of the "Word of God". If there is a God, the first option is preferable...if there isn't a god, the first option is preferable. The second option is preferable when the Bible needs to fit in a particular human specified mold.
I explained to you that God never condoned the type of slavery practiced in Egypt. The text you supplied has to be understood in relationship to what it meant in the ANE AND IN CONTEXT to Old Covenant Israel. What did slavery generally mean in the ANE? What type of situation were the people of that time were living in and experiencing in regards to slavery? The biblical God went above and beyond the situation that was considered normal in those times. God wanted to establish with Israel a standard that treated others fairly and with dignity and respect. Yes, there were consequences for breaking the Mosaic Laws. God was teaching Israel what it meant to be holy and pure as He was and that works based merit could never meet such standards, hence the need for the Saviour. Slavery in ancient times also presented a bigger picture, spiritually. It represents our slavery to sin and to things that have control over us.
You ignored the other side of the issue. God specifically said to Israel never to treat others as they were treated in Egypt. I explained to you that the type of slavery in Egypt was different from the type God spoke of and wanted practiced in Israel. I explained to you the ANE coed of conduct, as laid out by Glenn Miller and others. The kind of slavery or servitude in Israel was more contractual and like an employer employee relationship in which the worker lived with the family. The only difference was when a person captured in war. That person was required to make reparations. The discipline standards in the ANE were different than the standards of today. The kind of slavery in Egypt was the kind in which chattel slavery was practiced. God forbade such treatment of people. Period.
Good luck with that, brother.
Thanks for your platitudes!
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@SkepticalOne
Post 1280:
It is also interesting that you suggest "belief in god" not the 'existence of God' is what gives lives meaning.You must believe in God before meaning makes sense.So, is that only your specific god or just any god in general? ...and how do you know god is not a meaning you've manufactured?
Because of the contradictory nature of different gods there can only be one true and living God. The Judeo-Christian God is the only God I defend against attack, not that He needs defending, but because the message is worth telling and gives meaning to the lives of those who will believe because of the message/His revelation.
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@3RU7AL
You exclude that these claims can be true because you believe these ancient people cannot tell the truth or are not authorities in the matters they speak of and appeal to.Well, it's not really so much that "they CAN'T be true" as it is that "the claims are unverifiable and NOT logically necessary".
Not verifiable in every case, but for the ones in which they are, they check out to be true.
Any assumed validity you lend to "The Bible" must apply equally to other ancient stories (like The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Vedas).
Nope. The logical consistency is greater for the biblical accounts. The information contained in the Bible is verified often by multiple sources.
The Bible is a collection of around 66 different authors that are internally consistent in the narrative about God and humanity.
Also, you might enjoy, [LINK]
Your link was blank/video unavailable.
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@3RU7AL
Although beauty is not a moral value, I would still argue that its ideal is God. He is again the fixed reference point.Wait a minute, does this mean that all the most beautiful things in the world are mirror reflections of "YHWH"?God is Spirit. Beauty reflects His Spirit. Kindness, goodness, gentleness, love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, and self-control. Those are qualities, not quantities.who made all the "ugly stuff"?
My take: Humanity in Adam chose to know both good and evil. When humans decided to do evil they were separated from the goodness of God and cast out of Eden. They were also prevented from living forever by taking from the Tree of Life. Life became worse by human choices because people did not want to retain the goodness and knowledge of God. With the Fall, God also imposed consequences for sin, yet He did this for a purpose. Death and decay is a reminder that we only have so long on this earth. Do we seek true meaning or do we manufacture our own? Our bad choices compound the problems we face with the curses God placed on humanity. You can read of the curses in Genesis 3. Romans 8 tells us that the creation (what is made) groans in expectation, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, [n]in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our body. 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, through perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
So, you can see that Paul says the suffering experienced as Christians is nothing compared to the goodness that is to be revealed later in Christ's return. Christians have the hope that the rest of humanity does not. We are also told the creation was subjected to frustration for a purpose, "in the hope that creation itself" would be set free from this corruption by Jesus Christ. We see this corruption, we are reminded of it ever day, both in the actions of sinful human beings and their wilful disobedience against God, and in the corruption God subjected the creation to at the Fall. We are told that the creation groans and suffers the pain of childbirth, waiting for our adoption as sons and daughters. It is only in Jesus Christ that we find the freedom from such corruption and decay and are transformed by His sacrifice and share in His kingdom. It is a spiritual reality for the Christian that Christ Jesus has conquered death and restore the Christian to God.
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@FLRW
The Universe must have a cause if it had a beginning because self-creation is a contradiction in termsSee The Reason the Universe Exists is that it Caused Itself to Exist by Quentin Smith
Quentin Smith, no less, whoever he is, and why should I care?
[a] Philosophers have traditionally responded to the question, ‘why does the universe exist?’, in one of two ways. One response is that ‘the universe exists because God created it’ and the other response is that ‘the universe exists for no reason—its existence is a brute fact’. [b] Both these responses are inadequate, since a third response is possible, namely, that the reason the universe exists is that it caused itself to exist. There are at least three ways the universe can cause itself to exist, by (1) a closed, simultaneous causal loop at the first instant of time, (2) beginning with a continuum of instantaneous states in a first half-open second, with each state being caused by earlier states, and (3) being caused to exist by backward causation, where a later event causes the big bang to occur. This suggests that the principle, ‘if the universe begins to exist, it has a cause’ does not support theism (as traditionally has been thought) but instead supports atheism.
[a] Okay, one of two ways - God and therefore meaning and reason, or brute fact. Which makes sense? What is a brute fact?
"In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that has no explanation." [1]
If it has no explanation how can it be a fact? A fact is something that is established by evidence. A brute fact is just a term people use when they can't find an explanation other than the obvious --> God. How ridiculous that they go to such extremes. Instead of the obvious, they can't make sense of it. They don't like the explanation - God, so they choose to muddy the waters.
[b] "The universe can cause itself to exist,"
How is the third option adequate? It is self-refuting. Nothing can't create something. What is NOTHING? It is not a thing. Nothing would first have to exist before it was capable of doing anything. Nothing being something is a contradiction of terms.
1: not any thing : no thing
2: no part
Nothing
►
- No thing; not anything.
- No part; no portion.
- One of no consequence, significance, or interest.
Suddenly you materialize three ways self-creation can happen, (1) the first being something vague and nebulous that you offer no proof. You create something outside the universe or materialize the universe yet again from nothing, but cannot or have not verified how this happens as anything but assertion. Is that more reasonable than God? (2) You have an infinite regression, which begs how you ever get to the present. (3) A later event caused an earlier event? It does not make sense.
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@3RU7AL
Post 979:
Although beauty is not a moral value, I would still argue that its ideal is God. He is again the fixed reference point.Wait a minute, does this mean that all the most beautiful things in the world are mirror reflections of "YHWH"?
God is Spirit. Beauty reflects His Spirit. Kindness, goodness, gentleness, love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, and self-control. Those are qualities, not quantities.
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@3RU7AL
Post 973:
A revelation God supplies those values.But even people who call themselves, "true Christians" can't seem to agree on what these (fixed standard) "values" entail.
I believe the Ten Commandments are something most Christians would agree upon, especially in the six that relate to our relationship to our fellow human beings:
1. Honour your father and your mother.
2. You shall not murder.
3. You shall not commit adultery.
4. You shall not steal.
5. You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor.
6. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, goods, or possessions.
These six deal with specific principles, including honouring others, telling the truth about others, harming others, greed, lust, stealing, and envy.
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@3RU7AL
@zedvictor4
Lot's of people seemingly are convinced of the absolute truth of the bible, but how many actually follow all the Levitical Laws?
Post 967:
The Levitical laws, or the Law of Moses, was a covenant God made specifically with OT Israel. I have argued that OT Israel no longer exists in covenant with God because they can no longer follow the prescribed laws. For instance, they can no longer offer sacrificial animals for atonement by the priesthood because in AD 70 the priesthood and Levitical system of worship was ended by God. He destroyed the temple, the priesthood, and the feast days and atonement could no longer be preformed in the prescribed manner.
Jesus established a new and better covenant, an eternal covenant that was not conditional on the if/then works of OT Israel but on the grace of God.
I'm not even certain if it is possible to conform simultaneously to both, the necessities of contemporary society. and the necessities of all biblical requirements.I would further suggest that save for a few extreme zealots, most theists are probably unwittingly or even knowingly hypocritical.So...Would believing any of this actually CHANGE how you acted in-real-life?........No.
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@SkepticalOne
Peter, you are running to the script again, but it does no good. It has already been shown that:1. A fixed, unchanging reference point is not required to navigate through the world. Magnetic north is not fixed; the rules of chess are arbitrary - yet we can determine a good direction or a good move. The moral landscape is no different.
You have not shown a relative reference point can make sense of itself as anything other than brute force, Skep.
Once again, Magnetic north points to a specific location, TRUE North.
Once again, the rules of chess are specific to the game of chess. The reference point is fixed and objective. You can only move a knight in a specific pattern. You have to meet specific requirements for a checkmate. The endgame is different from the start. A position can be determined to be weak or strong in a number of ways. You would not have such a game without these fixed, unchanging rules.
The same goes for morality. Without a fixed and objective reference point moral good can mean anything and I can show you that it does. Thus, moral good loses its identity, a point you need to address. Good in relation to something is a specific thing. It can't be anything you want to make it otherwise it becomes meaningless.
You accused me in Post 970 of this:
"This is the third time you've responded to this post. Why are you trying to reset the conversation?! I mean seriously, if you can't be bothered to follow the conversation (which has moved well past this post), then why should anyone waste their time attempting to carry on with you?"
Why are you bringing it up again? I responded for one of three reasons, 1) because you also brought up the subject more than once or, 2) I did not feel I had covered it adequately or, 3) I lost track of where I was at. I also explained a while back that I was travelling back and forth to another city for cancer treatments for my wife. I could not devote much time to answering the posts which were piling up, especially those from Amoranemix who is extremely detailed. His posts alone take a lot of effort to respond to. I usually try to respond to everyone who addresses me, but I know I am 11 pages behind.
This is your Post 1231. I left on on Post 970.
2. You yourself cannot show you have a fixed, unchanging reference point:
- If the god of the Bible were real, he would not be unchanging (unless he still condoned slavery, genocide, and a world absent rainbows). Plus, even if the god of the Bible were immutable, his existence can't be established.
Nope, you are suggesting the biblical God condones slavery. That is not the case, and I spent a great deal of time and effort to establish that with references to biblical text. I also showed how God used a nation to bring judgment on another for the evil done.
- If the god of the Bible were not real (which I believe to be the case), you are relying on your own interpretation of the words of bronze-age humans - definitely unfixed and subject to change.
Nope. I am using hermeneutical principles and exegesis. I have had that discussion with you many times, and criticized you for eisegesis on the way you used "this generation," "this age," and the term "you" as well as other pronouns in a generic way rather in the specific way the text determined the use of the word. You are just a bad interpreter of Scripture and I made the point that those who judged our debate were just as guilty of neglecting the audience of address and the time indicators.
Your position crumbled at least 600 posts ago. Running back to the same beaten arguments/script won't resuscitate it.
Nope, it did not. I do not believe you adequately addressed the issues I raised. I just finished responding to Post 960 and have not witnessed what you are claiming. I believe you are just trying to create that narrative by innuendo and assertions, and in this day and age, many people are gullible to such nonsense as per the case of the Democrat Party in office by the same method of control and propaganda technique (a sign of the times, just like atheism being fashionable when its emperor is naked).
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@FLRW
You would be no more significant that a fly on dung because there is no ultimate purpose for meaning because there is no ultimate purpose for your life.I wonder what the ultimate purpose was for my cousin that died from leukemia when he was 7 years old?
That is something only God has the answer for. I can only speculate. Good can come from bad things happening. When my father died I started my quest for meaning in life that lead me to the biblical God. Without God the point is that there is no ultimate purpose. Without God, which you seem to believe does not exist, why are you looking for purpose??? Without God, why does it matter to you?
And speaking of good, what does good mean without God? Its all relative. One persons good is another persons evil unless there is a fixed unchanging standard or measure for the good, or what you would call good. That brings me to another point, why is what you believe good actually so?
When you speak of your cousin dying at age seven I gather you see this as a bad thing. Bad in relation to what? What is the standard that you judge good and bad against? Is it relative and subjective, or fixed and objective? But without God, why is death so bad? It is just "Nature" running its course. So why are you making a big deal of it? Thus, once again, I see inconsistency coming from your position.
As usual, I wait with baited breath to see if you will answer my queries.
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@ludofl3x
Life is just a freak of nature, a chance happenstance with no ultimate purpose or meaning.What happens if this is the case, do you think? Like how would your life, YOURS specifically, be materially different?
I do not believe it is the case. I do not believe we could make sense of anything, ultimately, if this was the case. I believe it is impossible. Thus, prove otherwise. You know you can't.
Now, what would be the implications of existence without God? Anything goes. Why would you expect uniformity of nature, things to continue and be sustained? There would be no reason for these things happening. Purpose requires intention and adequate agency. For the atheist, why does anything exist at all? I can't understand how there can be a reason because matter devoid of personal being is unable to reason. Thus, the atheist cannot make sense of existence. If you think otherwise, then explain how and why. How would something unreasoning sustain anything? Why would the universe come into existence and how? And if you do, per chance, find a reason, why would you expect to in an unintelligent universe???
Should I expect silence from my enquiry and questions yet again, as per usual?
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@FLRW
I think I will go with Thomas Edison. Betcha didn't know this one was a non-believer! Well, he was. Quote: "I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." Quote: "So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk." Quote: "I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul....I am an aggregate of cells, as, for instance, New York City is an aggregate of individuals. Will New York City go to heaven?....No; nature made us -- nature did it all -- not the gods of the religions."
If you are an aggregate of cells, governed by your environment and your genetic makeup and how your cells mutate, what does it matter how one group of cells reacts to another? Things just happen so don't make a big deal of it. Please be consistent with your ideology. Hitler was governed by his aggregation of cells. What is wrong with that?
I believe God makes salvation and thus heaven an individual matter in the NT, not a city matter as with Nineveh in the OT. Jesus made faith conditional on the individual. A person must be born again.
Edison gave fake intention and ability to "Nature" making it his god. For him, his presuppositional starting point would be matter, or matter and energy, because he is attributing all or everything to matter. Without a personal supernatural being what is left in explaining why we are here? I question whether he got into the heady issues involved with his worldview. People are so gullible. As I have said many times, I do not believe he can be consistent with his necessary starting point. Instead, he should have wound his thinking back to the nuts and bolts of what holds such a position together - blind, indifferent chance happenstance is responsible. What can chance do? I say nothing. Chance is not a thing. It is an abstract term used to describe probability or a freak situation. How does a freak situation sustain anything? And what is the agency behind such freak situations? The myth is that it has the ability to do something. And if the universe had a beginning what caused it to begin? Did Edison say, and why would I believe him? The Universe must have a cause if it had a beginning because self-creation is a contradiction in terms which I hope you understand. If not, I will be glad to explain it further.
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@SkepticalOne
Is your life meaningful?I'll answer in the generic "you."[a] Yes. The reason, because you are created in the image and likeness of God. You seek and look for meaning. Whether you find Him is a different matter.[b] Now, suppose you believe there was no God. Meaning would be something you manufactured that in the long run means nothing. There would be no meaning to our lives once we were dead. You are born, live and die, then nothing matters anymore. But why are you so bent on finding meaning while you live if you believe God does not exist? Is it just to make you feel happy and worthwhile but in effect you are fooling yourself? Your life in of no more significance than a fly on dung, and in a short period of time you will be forgotten. You are also living inconsistently in a meaningless universe, one that has no meaning to or in it in seeking.You contradict yourself. You grant the man in the scenario has a meaningful life, and then go on to say non-belief in a god (which seems to be a condition of the scenario) makes "your life no more significant than fly on dung".
Let me try and explain it again.
[a] I'm saying that humanity makes meaning even if they do not believe in God because they are created in the image and likeness of God. I never conceded the non-existence of God.
[b] I'm saying the consequences of you (an atheist) believing God does not exist would be that you believe meaning is something that is manufactured for this short life, but in the bigger picture your manufactured meaning is meaningless. You would be no more significant that a fly on dung because there is no ultimate purpose for meaning because there is no ultimate purpose for your life. The universe does not care about your existence. You believe nothing matters for you once you are dead. Meaning would become arbitrary to whatever purpose you wanted to give it in this life, but the consequences of such ideas would be that you believe the universe is indifferent to our existence, not made for us. You would believe you are creating purpose despite ultimate purposelessness.
It is also interesting that you suggest "belief in god" not the 'existence of God' is what gives lives meaning.
You must believe in God before meaning makes sense. That does not deny God His existence. Meaning and morality needs an ultimate objective standard and purpose or else it can mean whatever a person wants to make it, and as I said before there is no ultimate purpose for life. Life is just a freak of nature, a chance happenstance with no ultimate purpose or meaning.
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@Castin
Sure, I look forward to the discussion when you are ready. Please post the link.
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@3RU7AL
Post 960:
I'd like to just note here that I am a HUGE FAN of your work.I really am.I'm extremely impressed with your tenacity and clear thinking.
Thank you, and I am impressed that you are willing to examine and test what I have to say.
But I'm going to ask you for a big favor.Try to imagine something.Just for like, two minutes.Try to imagine you are born into a remote village.You don't know what time-period you're in and you don't know what part of the planet you're living on because you're a baby.Now try to imagine growing up, getting older.You learn to herd your family's goats and gather grains and carry water.You fall in love.You have a child.You've never seen a book.Is your life meaningful?
I'll answer in the generic "you."
Yes. The reason, because you are created in the image and likeness of God. You seek and look for meaning. Whether you find Him is a different matter.
Now, suppose you believe there was no God. Meaning would be something you manufactured that in the long run means nothing. There would be no meaning to our lives once we were dead. You are born, live and die, then nothing matters anymore. But why are you so bent on finding meaning while you live if you believe God does not exist? Is it just to make you feel happy and worthwhile but in effect you are fooling yourself? Your life in of no more significance than a fly on dung, and in a short period of time you will be forgotten. You are also living inconsistently in a meaningless universe, one that has no meaning to or in it in seeking.
As a Christian I believe the Universe was created for a purpose. It displays the majesty and glory of God. It reminds us there is something far greater than ourselves. Thus, I am consistent in believing life is meaningful. There is sense to be made of it.
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@3RU7AL
Post 959:
Your worldview does not have what is necessary for the knowledge of origins.And neither does yours.
Sure it does. I have a necessary being. Beings are necessary for knowledge but not all beings know what happened. You don't know and admit it. With origins who really knows, if no human was there? You build upon starting presuppositions. You think I can't know but you don't know. You don't know because you do not have what is necessary to know. The biblical God would have what is necessary. You were not there at the beginning of the Universe. Also, if you did not exist knowledge would still exist, so would truth. You nor I have the scope to know what happened in the beginning unless a Being who was around revealed it to us.
You've simply built a framework that re-labels the words "I don't know" (replacing them with "YHWH").
I can know, provided God exists, and the evidence is far more reasonable than the evidence that He does not exist. Not only that, God's Spirit intermingles with and convinces my spirit by believing the testimony. God continually confirms Himself to those who trust in Him. The Bible is evidence that makes the case for God, even though He is not required to reveal Himself. Through His grace and mercy, He has. Whether you believe that is between you and Him. I can show you why He is reasonable to believe based on His revelation and the existence of the Universe, but you believing is not my decision to make.
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@3RU7AL
Post 958:
Perhaps my favourite evidence for the existence of God is the prophetic argument. I have not found an atheist on this forum (or any other) that understands the evidence's complexity and proofs.A book's predictive power is no measure of its infallibility.
It gives additional reason to support the God within. If every prophecy comes true or gives good reasons for the truth claims, that is beyond the scope of normal fallible human beings. Tell me of some human who could predict thousands of specific events before they happened.
I have heard it likened to a leaky bucket. One bucket will stop some of the water, but bucket after bucket telescoped on top of each other in a prescribed manner prevents the leakage of water for the most part. The biblical arguments are like that. It is not just one bucket we are speaking of. The moral argument is another bucket to prevent the leaking. The bucket for mind or intelligence is another. The teleological argument is another, and the list goes on. The other consideration is if it is reasonable to believe.
A meteorologist can still lie to you.
So what? Can they be 100% true in their predictions? I know of none who are.
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@3RU7AL
Post 957
The Christian worldview already has what is necessary, an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, immutable, eternal Being [OOOIEB].Your OOOIEB is logically incompatible with human agency.
I don't believe in OOOIEB, I believe in the biblical God, a specific and only God. Nevertheless, how so?
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@3RU7AL
Post 956
I am saying that without a reasoning being who created the universe, the universe is without reason for its existence.Oh boy.Is that what you're hung up on?The teleological fallacy?
What I am not saying - I'm not saying the Universe is reason.
I'm saying your worldview is inconsistent. I'm asking you why you find reasons for things in a Universe supposedly devoid of reason (reason requires being). From your perspective, reason came about long after the Universe, yet things had to happen in a particular way for "reasons" eventuality. Please explain how from a chance happenstance position. I'm saying what I believe about origins is more reasonable. I'm saying I can make sense of reason, purpose, and meaning. I'm saying you are guilty of a lot of assumptions that are not reasonable. We both begin with presuppositions. Mine are more reasonable than yours.
I made a statement that I think is reasonable. Without a necessary reasoning being, why would you expect to find reasons for things happening in the universe, or the universe? I did not say the Universe is reasoning.
How would said reason come about? Reason is a product of beings. Explain its root cause without a necessary being first causing things to happen in a prescribed manner. What you are telling me (with your silence) is that chance happenstance has intent to do something. How can that happen? What you are telling me, if you believe the Universe began, is that there is no first cause, thus, something from nothing.
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@FLRW
Post 954
See the research paper: Biological and cognitive underpinnings of religious fundamentalismAbstract:Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality.
How does that discount the biblical revelation?
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@Amoranemix
secularmerlin 409Very revealing. It does not matter to you that innocent human beings are allowed to die for the want of a kidney. Would it matter to you if someone chose to allow your innocent ten-year-old die rather than donate a kidney? [*] If so, then you have a double-standard and you are not consistent. Consistency is a sign or indicator that something is dreadfully wrong with your logic.PGA2.0 517[*] You are talking in hypotheticals. I am talking in terms of what is really happening.Another person is not responsible for my ten-year-old. You are placing the responsibility on them. Why are you assuming they are responsible? My ten-year-old's health in such a case may very well be beyond my control to help. I would be disappointed, even heartbroken, if they died or if someone volunteered to give a kidney, then chickened out, but I have no right to force another person to give their kidney unless that person signs a contract to do so. Usually, a money exchange takes place in such contracts.What relevance does reponsibility have ? [a] You assume without justification that a stranger would require to donate a kidney only if they are responsible for the child. However, in case of unwanted pregnancy, you did not give responsibility as a reason to keep the foetus alive. The right of the foetus to live seemed sufficient for the mother to be obligated to sustain it. Why does that not suffice in case of 10-year old in need of a kidney ? Why is the stranger allowed to violate the child's body without its consent to kill the child by refusing to give a kidney ?
[*] The topic was the unborn. Secular is using the Judith Thompson argument of analogy. I was speaking of what IS happening in another situation, yet I placed myself in Secular's hypothetical even though he escaped my question. Yes, I care, but does he care about the unborn? He avoided the question.
What your posts do, IMO, is avoid the topic by refocusing on everything but the topic. You go through yards and yards of posts but how about you EXPLAIN how you justify morality and why what I say is wrong in regards to the unborn, in your opinion.
[a] Nope. I assume that a woman (the mother) is responsible for what happens to her own flesh and blood, her biological offspring, not that of a stranger. The parents share with the other family members as their own flesh and blood. She chose to have sex which resulted in this new life being formed in her womb. The womb is the natural environment for the unborn. It is where it belongs. It is where it develops. The unborn is not a stranger to her. The other child is not her offspring. She did not choose to engage in sex with its father. She is not responsible for another person she does not even know, although she could donate a kidney to such a person if she felt compelled to do so out of love. If that donation resulted in her death, her offspring would suffer, however.
Not only this, the stranger argument is ridiculous in its own right in that it is unlivable after the first donation. And what is to stop us from being responsible in other ways, like our eyes and ears? If I come up to you (missing an eye) should I be able to demand that you give me your eye? Should the law state I be morally responsible for your body, a complete stranger, without doing violence to my own responsibility to my family?
SkepticalOne 430P.S.S. Human interpretation of the 'will of God' isn't a fixed reference point either and can be used to support atrocities and oppose equality. (Holocaust, apartheid,Transatlantic slave trade)PGA2.0 520The Holocaust, Apartheid, transatlantic slavery are not biblical or OT slavery but a misinterpretation.Don't forget the Crusades also.The point is that reality demonstrates that your god doesn't solve the problems you complain about.What would solve the problems you keep complaining about, and thus would be necessary for that, is that everyone agrees. That could theoretically happen by everyone inventing the same god and adopting his morality. Of course, that is not realistic. With the help of an actual, real god that may be feasible. Your god is clearly insufficient, either because he doesn't exist or because he is a paltry communicator. His morality also rings poorly with many people.
It is not the biblical God who is the poor communicator, or insufficient, but the person interpreting His will and doing violence to it in many cases through misinterpretation. His morality rings poorly with those who usurp their preference over what is necessary.
PGA2.0 567 to SkepticalOneHosea 10:1-4(NASB)Retribution for Israel’s Sin[ . . . ]Over and over, God sends prophets and teachers to warn them to return to Him, but they will not listen. So, He gives them the consequences of their sin.[a] To me that behaviour is immoral. [b] To you and presumably to God, it is moral. [c] Contrary to what you pretend I dont try to impose my preference upon you. [d] You on the other hand, try to impose your preference upon skeptics. [e] You have however so far been unable to give good reasons for skeptics to adopt them. [f] Things like being fixed and all-knowing may be important to you, but skeptics don't care about those. [g] On top of that, you accused me of being hypocritical for trying to impose my preference on you.
[a] Why should I value your opinion? Immoral in relation to what fixed standard; the one you make up? How is that fixed? If it is not fixed. How is it better? Better in relation to what?
[b] It is either immoral or it is not. It can't be moral to me and not to you. Morality needs an identity that does not change. (A = A)
[c] You are begging that your preference is or could be moral. On what justification?
[d] Nope, what I do is argue that I have what is necessary for morality and you, as an atheist, do not. You can't make sense of it. Why is your preference any BETTER than anyone else? Because YOU say so? If that is your standard I say differently. It is no better.
[e] I have. Make sense of morality if you can. I can. My worldview has what is necessary. Your worldview does not (Like it or not, and you don't. How embarrassing for you).
[f] Yet you need to borrow from such a standard to make sense of morality. Demonstrate otherwise. You CAN'T.
[g] Only when you make a moral judgment when you have no means of justifying it. You keep sneaking in words like "good" and "better" without being able to justify why they are so. Most of the time you do not even try. IMO, you just assume that what you believe can make sense of itself without even trying to make sense of it.
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@Amoranemix
PGA2.0 369I have told you many times. You do not listen. It is immoral because if offends the righteousness of God.[*] It is wrong if there is an objective standard that we can measure values against that is fix and best. If not, nothing ultimately matters and morality becomes nothing more than subjective individual or group preference. [ . . . ]secularmerlin 408[*] This is an unclear standard. Please either offer a reliable metric for determining why things or offensive in this manner or I will be forced to conclude that you are using a standard which yo uh do not actually understand which is not helpful to the conversation.PGA2.0 512I offered the reason why. God is a necessary Being. He is omniscient, knowing all things. How is such a standard unclear?[111] How can you have something that is anything other than preference without a fixed, objective best? God fits the criterion that you do not (and cannot demonstrate that is necessary).[111] [a] That is not even a standard. I think he was asking what or how something offends the righteousness of God. [b] It seems that offends the righteousness of God whatever God dislikes. For example, God prefers that people worship him in stead of some other god and therefore decides that worshipping another god offends his righteousness.
[111a] Nope, I have explained this many times before. God knows all things, He knows what harms and what builds up, but more than this, God is good. That is His nature. He knows the difference between good and evil because He is good. He is the standard that we compare good and evil to, a necessary standard that does not change. God is love. Love is good. If you don't think so, I can only offer you the choice to then try living with someone who hates and see where it gets you.
[b] Any standard that is changing is inconsistent. A changing standard can mean the opposite. The biblical God is unchanging.
secularmerlin 408If we examine the source material (the bible) the Yahweh appears to be a cruel, capricious, jealous, vengeful, genocidal, egomaniacal maniac whose ten most important rules deal mostly with his own vanity and do not address rape or owning people as property at all and elsewhere in the book deals with these issues very unsatisfactorilly.PGA2.0 513How is it cruelto punish wickedness? Why is it wrong for God to jealously protec twhat is right and good? Why is it wrong to take vengeance(accountability for the wrong) on injustice?[112]Those who do not recognize the majesty and awesome glory of God put their own above Him in their boasting and puffed-up self. It is not vanity to point to Himself for guidance but wisdom.[113][112] [a] The problem is that whether something is cruel or wicked is a matter of opinion and that not everyone shares your or God's opinion. [b] Understandably God does not hold those who disagree with him in high regard, but neither did Adolf Hitler, nor do Kim Jong Un and Bashar all Assad.[c] Yet you don't excuse their behaviour with indignated questions like that. When the latter bombs civilians, you dont ask : “How is it cruel to punish wickedness? Why is it wrong for Bashar to jealously protect what is right and good?” [d] Why ? Because you are strongly biased in favour of God. God is your preference.[113] That God has majesty and awesome glory has yet to be demonstrated. That God exists as well.
[112a] Yes, you recognize a problem. If what is cruel or wicked is a matter of opinion then there is no set standard. Anything can be said to be cruel or wicked. Your worldview cannot justify why your standard is any better than God's, since everything is relative. Why should I believe you? You and your worldview lacks credibility. And who are you to decide what is good and what is evil if goodness is based on preference??? I would say screw your view if opinion is all we had to choose from. Your relativeness is not going to be my arbiter if I have the power to decide otherwise. I would choose things that serve my own nature and desires if there was no ultimate standard, in as much as I could enforce my desires.
[b] You are making this a choice. You want to choose your moral standard and you don't want it to be God's. That would defeat your relativism and you don't like that. It goes contrary to your opinion. Why SHOULD I value your opinion??? And are you saying that you would choose Hitler's Germany over the biblical God's decrees of love your neighbour, and do not harm others? Would you rather dehumanize Jews and other people that Hitler decided were undesirable to him? Is that your idea of justice and worth?
[c] Yes, I do ask why are they dropping bombs on such people, and I take into account the nature of the government and leader as see wickedness in their actions. These leaders dehumanize, discriminate, disrespect, demonize, devalue, and demoralize those they don't like. Could they live with their own standard applied to them??? Nope. Yet, they think nothing of doing it to others. They don't recognize the good, they recognize their preference that is counter to the good.
[d] Why? I am biased in favour of an ultimate, absolute, objective, unchanging standard that CAN explain morality. You have no such standard. You can't justify why what you believe is any better than what Hitler believed without invoking the Christian standard. The problem is that you are to proud to admit it, instead fighting tooth and claw against making sense of morality. You cannot make sense of morality. All you can do is say, "I like this!" or "I don't like this!" So what? Who cares if there is no ultimate identity for the good, the right?
[113] Do you find awe and wonder in the universe of the micros or macros? How did they come about? Can you make sense of that? Explain why the universe exists. You have no answers for the why. From a Christian perspective, your problem is that you do not want to give majesty and glory to Him who deserves it.
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@Amoranemix
He never answered my question but changed the subject, then accused me of deflecting a decade earlier without supplying the evidence.
Not only that, his example was very generic. Who was murdered after being deported?
PGA2.0 491 to 3RU7ALSo you are discriminating against some innocent human beings because of their development??? Would it be okay to discriminate against you if your IQ was not as great as another? How about discrimination against a female toddler or infant because she is not as developed physically as a grown-up woman?Would it be OK to discriminate against you if you were not human ?
Human ethics deals with human beings.
The question is in regard to human beings, unborn human beings. Here it is again:
"So you are discriminating against some innocent human beings because of their development?"
The point: There is a double standard taking place here. People who support pro-choice cannot live with their double standard, as I pointed out. I showed that the only difference between an unborn human being and you is the level of development. Both you and the unborn are human beings. If you want to apply the level of development to the unborn can you live with it also if someone applies it to you? No, you can't. As soon as someone with more intelligence or who more developed mentally than you decides you don't deserve to live does that person have the right to kill you? If you say 'no' you are siding with the unborn here and prolife. If you say 'yes,' then you can have no objection with such principles of them taking your life.
What 3ru7al does is avoid answering the question, just like most atheists and pro-choicers do on these threads. Again, they want to criticize the Christian worldview without being accountable for their own worldview and its lack of ability to determine what is right as anything other than preference. PREFERENCE MAKES NOTHING RIGHT unless it is. You can't just arbitrarily decide. Rightness loses its identity if it is changing.
You keep citing these other points by other people but what is your point?
3RU7AL to PGA2.0What does your law say is appropriate if your neighbor is threatening you and or your family?PGA2.0 512OT or NT?IMO, obey the law of the land, love your neighbour, be kind, show the same grace and mercy that you have received from God, bless those who persecute you, keep no record of wrongs, leave justice or revenge to God and the law in the land, repay evil with good, turn the other cheek where you are concerned[110], but when others are concerned, to protect them against harm.[110] You have tried to justify the subjugation of Canaanites and Philistines by the Israelites by labelling these people as wicked. [a] That did not qualify as repaying evil with good, nor as turning the other cheeck. [b] Were God's orders to subjugate those people then in fact against the law ?
I have made the point that the Canaanites and Philistines were deemed wicked by the biblical account. The biblical God revealed their wickedness.
[a] Evil needs addressing. It is not for any person to take the law into their own hands by repaying evil with evil. We, as Christians, are to turn the other cheek to show the grace of God, that God is willing to forgive even though He has been offended. We find that forgiveness in Jesus Christ. We are instructed to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Judgment begins with God, but without accountability there is no justice. That is why God appointed civil magistrates to handle matters of morality. That is why we have policing.
[b] No, the subjugation was not the same as that practiced in Egypt. God reminded the Israelites never to treat others the way they were treated in Egypt. Israel was not to oppress those in their land. They could discipline those who broke the law.
And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.
[ The Mission of Moses ] And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.”
Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.
Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the labors of the Egyptians, and I will rescue you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.
“You shall not oppress a stranger nor torment him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
“You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.
You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes.
The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
God also has the right to hold those who are evil accountable. He is their Creator and they are accountable to Him. Thus, He brings judgment on nations that do wrong after warning them by using other nations.
[ Message to Egypt ] The pronouncement concerning Egypt: Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt; The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence, And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. “So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians; And they will fight, each against his brother and each against his neighbor, City against city and kingdom against kingdom. Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them; And I will confuse their strategy, So that they will resort to idols and ghosts of the dead, And to mediums and spiritists.
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@Stephen
So staying with the theme of my thread, Do you accept PGA 2.0's version of events concerning Jesus' return in 66-70 ADNope...................................... Comments David v. PeanutHut.Comments
I pointed out to you that the signs and prophecies are shown to have taken place. They are confirmed either in the NT epistles, or by history, or in both instances.
But of course you didn't pick up on that point simply because it was me that pointed it out in my first post. I also mentioned Mathew 24:6-7 as further signs that we "are also look for" as told by the Christ, but that too you have over looked simply because it was I that brought it this argument.
Really, we??? How do you derive that "we" from the primary audience of address, the disciples?
Matthew 24:3-6 (NASB)
3 And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, [a] the disciples came to Him privately, saying, [b] “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the [a]end of the age?”
4 And Jesus answered and [c] said to them, “See to it that no one [b]misleads [d] you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the [c]Christ,’ and they will [d]mislead many people. 6 And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
4 And Jesus answered and [c] said to them, “See to it that no one [b]misleads [d] you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the [c]Christ,’ and they will [d]mislead many people. 6 And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
[a] The disciples come to Jesus. That is the audience of address if you follow the sequence further.
[b] Tell us refers back to the disciples.
[c] Jesus said to THEM. Who does "them" refer to? Again, it refers to the disciples.
[d] Is "you" generic or specific here? It is specific, again referring to the disciples.
We are told by Josephus and the NT writers of the epistles that many people come in the name of Jesus, some claiming they are the Messiah, and some misled many as Josephus made a note of a prophet by the name of Simon of whom over 30,000 followed him.
Now a man named Simon had previously been practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great;
[ The Appearance of False Prophets ] But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
[ Testing the Spirits ] Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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@Barney
You are having to do massive cherry picking to justify that you're triggered at the notion of Jesus having appeared in the bible (a collection of stories; religious ones to be precise).
Jesus did not appear in the Bible. The Bible describes His earthly appearances and incarnation.
From your OP, I gathered you were perpetuating the myth theory of Jesus Christ and relegating Him to mythology.
Post 277 - "The mythological figure under discussion has no such protection; as an example, he could be accused of being a bad carpenter with no repercussions."
What you did was add your own two cents into the mix, which is fine, but it shows your partiality to the subject matter. You immediately insinuated that Jesus was a mythical figure. This is not the biblical teaching, which has good evidence to support Jesus as historical, not mythical. Then, to top it off, you gave an example (bad carpenter) that most Christians would consider bad taste to perpetuate the mythical nature of Jesus. That example lacked any credible evidence.
Post 302 - " I haven't linked any mythology to Christianity other than Christianity itself."
Basically, you are saying Christianity is a myth.
[a] If I understand you right, you are offended that anyone declares Jesus came back from the dead, as that is a mythological story; therefore offensive to accuse him of such things. Heck, that he got his feet washed one time is similarly a story about him, thus hurtful to your sentiments that Jesus must be kept in a safe space and never talked about.
[a] Why would I be offended? The Bible teaches He did resurrect, that He was coming again within the lifetime of some of those present, and history records the spread of Christianity based on the belief in the resurrection. The Bible does not treat the resurrection as a mythical story but as fact. Furthermore, there is good evidence to support Jesus coming in AD 70. Paul said,
1 Corinthians 15 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
The Fact of Christ’s Resurrection
15 Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, 2 by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to [a]the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3 For I handed down to you [b]as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to [c]Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to [d]James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as [e]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, [f]and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is in vain. 15 Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified [g]against God that He raised [h]Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied.
15 Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, 2 by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to [a]the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3 For I handed down to you [b]as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to [c]Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to [d]James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as [e]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, [f]and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is in vain. 15 Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified [g]against God that He raised [h]Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied.
The Order of Resurrection
20 But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
20 But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
Paul confirms not only he but many others (over 500) were witnesses of the resurrected Jesus. Many went to their deaths, proclaiming this very message. They believed with GOOD REASON the NT to be God revealed.
The NT writers did not regard Jesus or His resurrection as myth. Christians believe Christ as myth is a later conspiracy brought on by false teachers, philosophers, and revisionist scholars and historians that Christianity borrowed its primary beliefs from pagan myths and mystery religions.
Even by your own offered primary definition for myth, they include ones with a determinable basis of fact:"A traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or [a] without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature." [changed bolding and underlining for emphasis]My words are chosen carefully. I have precisely used "mythological" [b] and walked you through the meaning. [c] I did not use "fictional," or "just a myth." To which I would understand strong disagreement (even then not this level of outrage; I mean someone else said this is physically violent of me! Physically violent to use one set of words instead of another with the same meaning...).
[a] Note my emphasis on the word without. The mythological Jesus is built on a certain presupposition and bias that Jesus was a mythic figure, rather than a historical figure, the former the Bible explicitly says was not the case.
[b] I walked you through how your post was interpreted by me, as a Christian, and how other Christians would most likely interpret your post as you suggesting Jesus was a mythical figure, not a historical person.
[c] I believe you are backtracking/changing the narrative/equivocating now. I believe most people would think you are calling Jesus a mythical person, not historical. Even so, you are welcome to dispute the topic under consideration here, the eschatological evidence for His coming in AD 70, as per the creator's OP. I would actually look forward to your take. I contend that the OP'er, plus many Christians (such as Darby or Scofield) and atheists in history (such as Bertram Russell), did not understand the biblical nature of Jesus' Second Coming.
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@fauxlaw
The types and shadows of the OT pointed to a greater truth - Jesus Christ.We're in complete agreement on that matter. Thanks.
Glad you see that. The types are on every page of the OT.
Luke 24
27 Then beginning [l]with Moses and [m]with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures...
44 Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things that are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
[ Testimony of the Scripture ] You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is those very Scriptures that testify about Me;
...solely in His humanity, not His divinity which He did not use.On that, I disagree because to bleed from every pore is an exquisite pain that humanity, alone, cannot sustain. There are very few examples of people having that condition [it does happen, rarely], but none survive it, and all succumb to death in shorter than the excess of 12 hours that Jesus suffered. It was by virtue of his divinity that he endured longer, until afternoon, and then only because he willed his death; he had complete control over life and death by virtue of his divinity.
Philippians 2:5-11
Have this attitude [e]in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be [f]grasped, 7 but [g]emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and [h]being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death [i]on a cross. 9 For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Again, you fail to understand the Bible you claim you have read in different languages. There is physical death and there is spiritual death.God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”I understand by your logic[?] that God the Father is a spirit, [a] who bore a physical son, Jesus Christ, who lived a mortal, physical life, was crucified, then resurrected to a physical body, as witnessed by up to 500 individuals, if not more, and thus said to his apostles, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Luke 24:39. And yet, God the Father is still a spirit? Were John and Luke at odds, or is it that we either do not understand what john really means by saying God is spirit, and we worship in the spirit, but we are clearly physical beings, and so why should God the Father be the unique only-a-spirit since resurrection is a process to recover an eternal, physical body?
Nope, not quite to my understanding. The eternal Son, the Second member of the Trinity, also Spirit, became flesh and blood human at the incarnation.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
Notice the Son is given. The Son said in many places that He was with the Father before the world began.
For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
The Child is born, the Son given.
At the incarnation the Father could also say concerning the Son's taking on human nature,
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the holy Child will be called the Son of God.
I fully understand the distinction of physical death and spiritual death. We suffer a sense of spiritual death right now in our physical separation from God [thus, we depend on worship of him "in the spirit."] Physical death is obvious, and a one-time occurrence. Spiritual death, while temporary, or of longer duration by our sinning, may be overcome by our repentance, and ultimate forgiveness to earn the right to eternal life with God, as a physical association, or will suffer permanent spiritual death by our decline to repent.
A correction there. We do not earn the right to eternal life. It is a gift of God, not by works, so no one can boast in their own ability. That is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The New Covenant is a covenant of grace, not works, not by what you earn but by what God gives to those who will believe. Even the believing is by God's grace. Faith comes by hearing the message. The Holy Spirit enables use to hear. No matter how much you tell some people they never become born again. They reject the good news.
But do you see the difference between the two deaths in Genesis then?
I agree completely with the rest of what you say.
Thank you!
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@SkepticalOne
Hitler was a humanist. He did not look to the Christian God but fashioned God in his own likeness by borrowing what he wanted to from the Christian religion."I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work.”Mein Kampf - Adolf HitlerHitler was a humanist? What definition of humanism are you using?
Not the Christian Lord. What he said and did were two different things. Anyone can profess Jesus Christ as Lord. By reading his literature, it is obvious he did not follow the Christ of Scripture but his own made-up version that could justify him dehumanizing, discriminating against, and killing millions of people.
I am using the definition in which people make up their own human values based on being human. He was not using the Judeo-Christian value system. He was giving lip service to Christianity while undermining it in everything he did. He wanted to dedicate Mein Kampf to Darwin, but Darwin wanted none of it because Hitler was applying social Darwinism.
noun
a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
a person devoted to or versed in the humanities.
a student of human nature or affairs.
a classical scholar.
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@Polytheist-Witch
If two people believe murder is wrong how is one more moral than the other.
Believing something does not necessarily make it so. I could believe I could fly. You could believe it too and encourage me to fly away. You could suggest I climb to the top of the Empire State Building and fly away. Does that mean I can fly? Just hoping I can, or you want me to, does not make it so.
It is a question of whether or not murder is wrong. Only then can the two be right.
More to the problem is who says? During WWII, Hitler killed 11-12 million undesirables. Was that wrong? Who says if morality changes? Who says when two opposite viewpoints collide? Hitler could justify killing six million Jews. Why was that wrong if murder is only a relative preference? It would depend on who was in power to the rightness or wrongness of an act. And that is what we see when people jettison God. Everything becomes relative.
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@SkepticalOne
Peter, [a] you are running to the script again, but it does no good. It has already been shown that:1. [b] A fixed, unchanging reference point is [c] not required to navigate through the world. [d] Magnetic north is not fixed; [e] the rules of chess are arbitrary - [f] yet we can determine a good direction or a good move. The moral landscape is no different.2. [g] You yourself cannot show you have a fixed, unchanging reference point:
- [h] If the god of the Bible were real, he would not be unchanging [i] (unless he still condoned slavery, genocide, and a world absent rainbows). [j] Plus, even if the god of the Bible were immutable, his existence can't be established.
- [k] If the god of the Bible were not real (which I believe to be the case), [l] you are relying on your own interpretation of the words of bronze-age humans - [m] definitely unfixed and subject to change.
[n] Your position crumbled at least 600 posts ago. Running back to the same beaten arguments/script won't resuscitate it.
[a] You are trying to create the script of narrative you want me to run to, Skep.
[b] When you base morality on what is the case, rather than what you make it (preference), it is. When you make it (preference), many others want to make it the exact opposite. It brings up the question of who is actually right regarding the good or right. You lose the identity of the right if it is not fixed and unchanging. I pointed out to you that this is what you witness in cultures when God is jettisoned. I pointed out to someone here that up until 1973, abortion was considered wrong, in most cases, a moral evil. Now, in most cases, it is considered the right. What changed? How can it be both right and wrong? Which is its true identity (A=A)?
[c] Yes, it is. Who are you to tell others it is not required. Who made you God? You are not God. You are just like me, a limited, frail, relative human being who can't point to what SHOULD be once you kill the fixed, unchanging necessary standard.
[d] Magnetic north is not true north, although it points in that direction and helps us find it.
[e] The rules of chess apply to that game. If you don't follow them, you are not playing chess.
[f] Good, in relation to what? You have to have a fixed point of reference to establish the relationship. True north is the fixed point. The game of chess is the fixed point. Unless you establish the relationship, you can't build on the rest. Quantitative values have a fixed standard. We know one foot is not one foot one inch. We can measure off a measurement of a foot because we have a standard. It does not change. One foot is one foot. With qualitative values, you also need a fixed standard or reference point.
[g] I can. I can't show that to your satisfaction. That is the nature of a skeptic. You never get to the finish point or make up your finish point, which does not necessarily coincide with mine.
[h] He does not change.
[I] God never condoned the slavery practiced in Eygpt. I have gone over your tired point plenty of times.
[j] It can, just never, never to your satisfaction. You can't establish His existence to someone who denies it, not until you die. Then you will have your just reward, Skep!
I can establish His existence on the impossibility of the contrary and the necessity of Him existing, and that is the way I conduct my posts. I say, Skep, make sense of morality by denying such a God. You can't. All you can do is shout louder than me in the hopes of drowning out my points. I believe I asked you once why I should believe what you are peddling. Why should I believe you have the answers, Skep? You have given me no reason that you do. I quiz you on many things that you are in the dark over. Do you think you are that much more knowledgeable than me? You are not. And knowledge without wisdom produces moral atrocities.
[k] Again, I don't trust your silly beliefs. You don't have what is necessary for me to trust them.
[l] I can justify my interpretations based on the written word. That is my plumbline, not what you think. If you want to persuade me otherwise, do it from a biblical perspective. In our debates on eschatology, I pointed out how you change the wording to fit your narrative instead of exegeting the passages. You make "this generation" into a generic generation far removed from the text. You do the same with "this age." And when I asked you to justify your position by the text, you can't. You treat specific people Jesus is addressing as a generic "you." That turns the text on its head. You absolutely butch the text and turn it into a pretext.
[m] The Bible is fixed. We have a text from early Christianity that is translated from koine Greek to different languages. Greek to Latin; Greek to Italian; Greek to English.
[n] The same old narrative from you. You never sufficiently addressed them. Thus, I continue to repeat them until you do.
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@FLRW
It is definitely Atheism. Atheism leads to Humanism, where Theism led to Hitler making belt buckles for his troops that said: "God is with Us."
Hitler was a humanist. He did not look to the Christian God but fashioned God in his own likeness by borrowing what he wanted to from the Christian religion.
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@fauxlaw
you go against the biblical teachingTo which biblical teaching, exactly, is my suggestion contrary? You infer there is a specific teaching I've ignored. Did not Satan tempt Christ in the wilderness?
Yes, Satan tempted Christ just like he tempted Adam in the Garden, and just like he tempted Israel in the wilderness. There is a parallel there - two wildernesses, two Adamic figures, two relationships with God. The difference, Jesus never succumbed to the temptation. As in the OT, contained, so also in the NT explained. The types and shadows of the OT pointed to a greater truth - Jesus Christ.
What teaching dismisses the probability that, included with satisfying hunger - which would be contrary to Christ's purpose in using his divine nature and power to help others, not himself - he was also tempted by the same words of doubt, "If thou be the Son of God..." to impose on the angels his rescue before that of others. You cannot just make the claim and then not bother to cite how this is contrary to biblical teaching. I am perfectly happy to be educated, if, in fact, it is there to be taught. I have read the Holy Bible cover-to-cover in a few languages, including Greek, and I find no such obvious teaching as you claim.
The Son, incarnate in human flesh, taking the nature of a human being, purposely came to do the Father's will to REDEEM fallen humanity. Thus, He satisfied the requirements of God solely in His humanity, not His divinity which He did not use. (Do you want the long-winded version?)
Further, is not doubt one of Satan's most useful weapons? Did he not use it5 in tempting Adam & Eve with eating of the tree of knowledge? "No," he told them, "you shall not surely die..." What he didn't say is that God would not end their lives on the spot, even God had said it would happen "in that day," thus hiding the true nature of death.
Again, you fail to understand the Bible you claim you have read in different languages. There is physical death and there is spiritual death.
God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
God created the human to interact in a physical world by being a physical being. God also created the human to interact with Him, which is through the spirit. Thus we are not only physical beings. God gave the human the choice to live with Him forever (eat from the tree of life) yet if the human wanted to know the difference between good and evil and disobey the good that God had commanded the human being would die SPIRITUALLY to God that very day, and that is what happened.
Genesis 2
16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not [o]eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.”
God also gave the human the choice to eat of the tree of life and live forever but once Adam had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil God barred the human fromit and the Garden that very day, and since the man had now experienced and done evil God separated the human from His intimate presence. That is the death Adam died that day - a spiritual death to God. He lived hundreds of years after that day physically, living to the age of 930 years.
Genesis 3
8 Now they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the [b]cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden...
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
Jesus Christ is the tree of life. He offers what was taken away in the Garden - eternal life and restoration with God. That is why He said,
Jesus responded and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
Jesus came to restore the spiritual relationship fully with God. What was undone with the first Adam in the Garden is restored by the Second Adam in a different garden.
In the Hebrew, our English "day" is interpreted as both a single day as we know it: one full Earth rotation, but also as a longer period of time. What is time to God? To him, it is virtually non-existent. What better weapon is there to convince us that a little sin here, a little one there, will matter little? But, they pile up, don't they, from that doubt that sin is no big deal. Then resulting doubt takes us further and further from God until he is dismissed out of hand, as many on this site contend.
Time is for the purpose of humanity. A day is a day. Any sin, the tinies peccadillo, is enough to separate humnity from the presence of God. That is why God required a covering or atonement for sin until He would once again open up a way that continually atoned for sin. The whole OT points to this period in history where God's chosen One would come to create a better covenant. The reason why is given in Hebrews 9 among other passages of Scripture.
8 The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the [j]outer tabernacle is still standing, 9 which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, 10 since they relate only to food, drink, and various washings, regulations for the [k]body imposed until a time of reformation.
A covering until a better sacrifice is offered. .
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the [o]ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the [p]cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through [q]the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
15 For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the violations that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 16 For where there is a [r]covenant, there must of necessity [s]be the death of the one who made it. 17 For a [t]covenant is valid only when people are dead, [u]for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. 18 Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled both the [v]tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. 22 And almost all things are cleansed with blood, according to the Law, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
23 Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these things, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a holy place made by hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year by year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been revealed to put away sin [w]by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And just as it is destined for people to die once, and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
A human being sinned and caused the Fall. A human being needed to demonstrate a flawless life to God to restore the Garden relationship. While bulls and goats were provisions to cover the sinner they were only as good as the next sin. They only represented the human that sinned. The human recognized that the animal that was kill, a life, should have been theirs. Jesus, being human offered the same kind of sacrifice that was needed for sin, a human one since it was a human that caused the guilt and the animal sacrifice, repeated for every sinful action only covered the human until this perfect sacrifice was offered. That is what Jesus did. Not only that, He lived on behalf of those who would believe in Him. He is the perfect representative accomplishing what animals cannot do.
As I said earlier, the Christian religion is centered on the Son of God who became incarnate, Jesus Christ. It is not based on a myth. Over and over we are told this in the NT and by those who claimed to be eyewitnesses of His coming, when He came the first time to live a human life before God. The Second coming would be in the power and glory of the Father, who is Spirit.
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@zedvictor4
A historical account or narrative.....TruePerhaps you overestimate it.
I'm not sure how to take your comment. Your first sentence can be taken in two ways.
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@fauxlaw
I think the Jesus mythology began a lot earlier than the Germans. To wit: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." The best road to mythology is to plant doubt in truth. Why not start with the very sonship of Jesus to God? Better to start the doubt in your target, first? Satan knows exactly who Christ is, but is making the strong effort to plant doubt in Jesus that he may not be the Son of God, after all. The stones and bread are coincidental. Satan wants to plant doubt; therefore: "If..." If Jesus can be made to doubt who he is, you've got the whole program defeated before it begins.
Undoubtedly, Satan aimed to usurp and destroy belief in Jesus, and mythologies were used and built upon to deny the historical Jesus by those who did not stick to the biblical narrative. The early church fathers addressed these mths. But, with German Higher Criticism, the focus shifted from the historical Jesus to a mythical Jesus as the more common view. In the last few hundred years, a historical attack and revision have been happening concerning Jesus. John had a caveat against mythologizing Jesus, as some were doing,
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
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@fauxlaw
I think the Jesus mythology began a lot earlier than the Germans. To wit: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." The best road to mythology is to plant doubt in truth. Why not start with the very sonship of Jesus to God? Better to start the doubt in your target, first? Satan ko=nows exactly who Christ is, but is making the strong effort to plant doubt in Jesus that he may not be the Son of God, after all. The stones and bread are coincidental. Satan wants to plant doubt; therefore: "If..." If Jesus can be made to doubt who he is, you've got the whole program defeated before it begins.
No, you go against the biblical teaching to arrive at such speculation instead of what is written. (Good conspiracy theory!)
The whole NT gives the reader the window, type, shadow, spiritual truth, or picture of Jesus as God from the OT. Jesus Himself accepts worship and compares Himself to the Father (God). What is applied to, or said about, God in the OT is applied to and said of Jesus in the NT. You can't logically come away with another conclusion from the text of Scripture. Yet you certainly try. Yes, there have always been heresies, as Jesus promised. And what you do above is read into Scripture things not said, such as your wild theories about Satan and Jesus.
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@SkepticalOne
-bIf a person, such as Skep, is a proponent of objective morality, he needs to explain what it entails and how he reaches such conclusions.It is time you update your description of my views to match my actual views. This is part of the mischaracterization I mentioned above.Hint: I am not a proponent of objective morality.[Link]
My mistake. You pick a standard you like (your well-being or a standard you agree with), apply it to others as to what should be adopted (in your subjective opinion), and then believe morality can be objectively determined by it. Why is your preference morally right? You can't say it is, only that you like it. Human well-being in whose opinion? Yours. There are probably millions or perhaps billions of people out there that will disagree with your idea of moral well-being as soon as they or their families existence is threatened, then it becomes "may the 'best' human survive and I hope it is me, my family!" in as much as they can determine best without a final, fixed reference point.
YOU: "With human well-being as a standard, we can objectively determine moral views which coincide with it." Post 479
Not a proponent of objective morality? How can you say anything is good? You can't. YOU CAN'T MAKE SENSE OF IT without borrowing from a system of thought that has a fixed, unchanging standard. All you can say is I don't like this or that. I reminded you and others before that if goodness or righteousness has no fixed, unchanging address/reference point, anything can be passed off as "good" or "right." Not only that, goodness or righteousness loses its identity, the law of identity in logic (A = A). I also pointed out to you and others that with such a relative worldview, how do you ever get "better?" Better than what? What do you hold better against? You don't have a best. You are always trying to attain this exclusive thought.
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@FLRW
The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is described by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, as the position that "..the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." It includes the view that the story of Jesus is largely mythological, and has little basis in historical fact.
Ehrman, a very seriously biased historian, IMO. I became aware of him and other liberal scholars while researching the Jesus Seminar. I'm speaking of Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, John Shelby Spong and other highly prolific authors who saturated the market with their BS.
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@zedvictor4
And a particular peoples particular GOD's covenantal dealings....True.And an account thereof...TrueNo more, no less.
A historical account or narrative.
You underestimate the Bible and biblical God.
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