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@linate
is it really conditionally unconditional love?
Is it really 'love'? i suppose a word is required for whatever it is, but it's not identical to the human emotion (or is it?).
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@EtrnlVw
Well, I was going to post the entire corpus of hindu scripture, but I thought it might be a bit much for people to read. :)
While there certainly is a lot of sacred hindu text, not that much of it actually deals with creation. The Rig Veda hymn quoted is considered the oldest. i find it interesting because - unlike Abrahamic scripture - it does purport to say how creation occurred and leaves it openly mysterious even to the gods themselves.
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@linate
I think you're describing the god you would like there to be.
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Rig Veda10 HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
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@SkepticalOne
I was right! Mopac posted:
These other so called churches? They are eating from the crumbs of our table. They are not the church.
They'll be burning hetetics this time next week.
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@SkepticalOne
I think maybe some people find it harder to 'chill' than others. Closing my eyes and putting Bach on the CD player didn't work for me until i tried doing it in the other order.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
Try fathom someone reading the whole post.
it's not that hard - its a straight lift from the apocypha and easier andmore literary than many passages in the regular bible.
But I would point out the text says 'the god of truth', not "God is truth"! Mopac is unshakable in his view that truth and god are the same thing so rejecting god is rejecting truth. Nobody here is denying truth! What is not accepted is 'God equals truth'. Mars is the god of war, but Mars is not war. I accept the reality of war, but not the reality of Mars.
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@disgusted
G: Hey! jesus!
J: What now, Dad?
G: Take look at this!
J: What's that?
g: My latest. I call it a kangaroo. See.I put a pocket on the front...
J: It's rubbish.
G: You don't like it?
J: It's just a big rabbit. You haven't made anything good since the giraffe.
G: Well maybe if you lent a hand once in a while...
J: Dad, I told you i don't want to be a god. I want to be an accountant.
G: Your my son - or you will be when i create a suitable mother - and you will do as I say.
J: <mutters>
g; You said something, hmm?
J: I said 'Where are you going to put it'? Somewhere well out of sight, I'd recommend.
G: I thought that big dry bit near the bottom. It's just wasted space at the moment.
J: Ok. I'll crate it up and take it down. As usual. That's all I ever get to do around here. Hey. Why don't you make something a bit more like us? In our image, sort of thing? A species that can talk and maybe needs an accountant?
G: Son! That's brilliant! I'll get right on it. That could be better than beetles even!
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@Castin
What's the difference between 'spiritual' and 'nice'?
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@3RU7AL
Oh, I see. I thought it might only be to make it seem deep.
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@Fallaneze
both of what?"Moral goodness" cannot exist apart from the mind, period, since both are only attributes of the mind.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
What about a thread for theists to debate theists on the correct denomination.
I'm sure it won't take long for mopydick to start banging on how good orthodoxy is.
The blood will start flowing in their thread soon enough; you can do a lot of damage with a well-swung guitar or tambourine when the singing stops.
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@SkepticalOne
well, I still can't think why I ought to care if the oil runs out or pandas go extinct after I'm dead. Swords and ploughshares use the same laws of physics, Newtons laws of motion and qm do not say we ought to be good. Morality does not exist.So...are you still a moral nihilist. If so, I still don't understand!
I take that to mean that there is no 'ought',no 'should'. So what about, say, slavery? Surely there should be no slavery? Very well then, let's do away with slavery! Those who would keep their slaves have to be overcome - but it is not a matter of morality but of will. Even if morality did exist whether there are slaves or not would still be a battle of wills.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
They were safe in the ark.If there was a world wide flood, how do you explain the large numbers of animals that seemed to of survived it
It was a big ark.Oh, and make it sound scientific.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Not a single Catholic I have known thinks that. He is a lying troll and now you are too.
Why not google it? Type 'immaculate conception' into google and it says:
"The Immaculate Conception is the conception of the Virgin Mary free from original sin by virtue of the merits of her son Jesus. The Catholic Church teaches that God acted upon Mary in the first moment of her conception, keeping her "immaculate"."
If I tell a lie it won't be one that takes under 5 seconds to debunk!
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@Polytheist-Witch
Here is the text of the bull that defined the doctrine of immaculate conception.
Its heavy going, but the highlights are
"Concerning the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ancient indeed is that devotion of the faithful based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul’s infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin."
"the soul of the Blessed Virgin, in its creation and infusion into the body, was endowed with the grace of the Holy Spirit and preserved from original sin;"
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i wonder what goes on in the 'atheist free' thread.. Is it all happy-clappy and singing kumbyah or do the catholics and protestants gang up and beat the crap out of the muslims?
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@3RU7AL
I think keithprosser was simply suggesting that, if you are not a member of a specific religion, you should carefully check your reference material.
Precisely.
Regarding Catholic doctrine, now you now why they called it a "Papal Bull".
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@Polytheist-Witch
I said its best to avoid judaic terms because they are often misused or misunderstood, especialy by non Jews.
Torah
Tanakh
Neviim
Ketuvim
Midrash
Gemara
Kablah
Targum
Nach
etc etc...
Do you know your Targums from your Gemara?
Obviousy there are times you have to use those terms, but if so at least try to use the right one! As my post on original sin and imacculate conception shows, it's hard to get it right in a religion we think we know fairly well!
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@3RU7AL
My advice was only to take care when using jargon. Really I was trying to be nice and avoid blurting out that PW's OP about the Torah was simply wrong.
No good deed goes unpunished, they say!
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@3RU7AL
A lot of people think 'original sin' refers to Adam and Eve being disobedient, but it actually refers to each of us being a sinner from our origin (ie conception) in our mother's womb so we are born as sinners right from our origin. We are all of us born already tainted with 'original sin'.
That is all but one of us - Mary. Mary was uniquely not tainted with original sin in order she was fit to bear Jesus. Mary was conceived sinless (ie imacculate) in her mother's womb. Hence it was Mary who was immmaculately conceived, not Jesus. 'Imaculate conception' is not the same thing as the 'virgin birth'.
Good Catholics are taught all that, but many Protestants aren't taught Catholic theology!
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@Polytheist-Witch
The only advice I gave was
"It's probably best to avoid Judaic terms, unless you are Jewish or referencing material that is specific to Judaism such as Midrash, which is damn rare on DArt."
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@Polytheist-Witch
What I stated is that using unfamiliar jargon is a bad idea.
For example, you, PW, have a completely muddled-up idea what "Torah" actually means. I like plain, clear language. It's hard enough to communicate with words in their proper meaning; if incorrect words get sprayed around we won't get anywhere.
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@EtrnlVw
gee, all these guys with PhDs building telescopes and sending rockets to Mars.... and all they had to do was ask you!
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@Polytheist-Witch
I didn't want to say that your OP is flat out wrong but you forced me into it!
Later you compound the OP's error by saying "The Jewish holy text is the TORAH five books given to Moses by God. The rest is law."
The Torah is the law part of the jewish holy text - the other parts being 'Prophets' and'Writings'.
When it comes to world scriptures, I don't think you know your Azvesta from your Edda.
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@Castin
It seems the OP adds to the confusion rather than clearing it up.
It's probably best to avoid Judaic terms, unless you are Jewish or referencing material that is specific to Judaism such as Midrash, which is damn rare on DArt.
People generally get original sin and immacuate conception wrong too.
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Why should they continue to happen in a prescribed pattern that we call a law of nature? There is no reason unless there is a Reasonable Being behind the universe sustaining it. Reason comes from mindful beings. Show me a stone that is reasonable or reasoning.
First you ask for a reason (as in cause),then say there isn't one. Then you start talking of reason as in 'thinking', not cause 'Reason comes from mindful beings'.
Recast:
What causes things to happen in a prescribed pattern that we call a law of nature? There is no cause unless there is a thinking Being behind the universe sustaining it. Thinking comes from mindful beings. Show me a stone that can think.
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@Ramshutu
I think that that example helps show the unplanned nature of evolution. The sensible ('intellgently designed') approach whould be to make monkeys fear snakes from birth, but random trial and error has produced a system that - for no good reason - needs a monkey to see another monkey scared of snake to kick in.
That convoluted, two-stage system is not ideal, but it is a lot better than having no system for snake-fear at all and is,presumably, it's effective enough to prevent a 'from birth' variant evolving.
Quite how it works for snakes but not flowers must be buried in the details of trillions of connections between the billions of neurones in a monkey
brain!
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@PGA2.0
i think you have acidentally conflated two meanings of 'Reason'. a) 'Cause' and b) 'Thinking about'.Why should they continue to happen in a prescribed pattern that we call a law of nature? There is no reason unless there is a Reasonable Being behind the universe sustaining it. Reason comes from mindful beings. Show me a stone that is reasonable or reasoning.
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@PGA2.0
God explains why we are moral beings, where we came from, why the universe exists, why evil exists in the world, why human beings act unjustly, why we find meaning and purpose in the universe, why we love, why we reason, what truth is, why we are logical beings, etc. Chance addresses none of this. So the nonsense is from chance happenstance and you are welcome to such nonsense since you want to make an appeal to emotion.
I'm happy to call it chance.
it is perfectly possible to expain human behaviour in physicalist terms. indeed i would say that the physicalist explanation of human behavoiur explains the existence of 'saintly' and 'devilish' individuals better than God's grace and demon posession does!
its seems to me you seriousy underestimate the explanatory power of physicalism and simulataneoulsy exagerate what god explains. you don't say how god makes us love, reason or be logical - he just does, presumbly to serve some private purpose.
The explanations offered by physicalism for love and reasoning aren't particularly elevating - they boil down to helping us to survive and reproduce. But how it happened and why happened don't matter as much as the fact that we can - and do - love and reason. Given that, whatmatters is what should we apply our powers of logic to? To the worship of the non-existent gods?
The nihilists are right that nothing is written in the laws of physics to guide us. Gravity and entropy have no morality, good nor bad. Atheism is bit like waking up alone on a desert island - the big question is what do we do?
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I'm happy to call it chance.God explains why we are moral beings, where we came from, why the universe exists, why evil exists in the world, why human beings act unjustly, why we find meaning and purpose in the universe, why we love, why we reason, what truth is, why we are logical beings, etc. Chance addresses none of this. So the nonsense is from chance happenstance and you are welcome to such nonsense since you want to make an appeal to emotion.
it is perfectly possible to expain human behaviour in physicalist terms. indeed i would say that the physicalist explanation of human behavoiur explains the existence of 'saintly' and 'devilish' individuals better than God's grace and demon posession does!
its seems to me you seriousy underestimate the explanatory power of physicalism and simulataneoulsy exagerate what god explains. you don't say how god makesus love, reason or be logical - he just does, presumbly to serve some private purpose.
The explantions offered by physicalism for love and reasoning aren't particularly elevating - they boil down to helping us to survive and reproduce. But how it happened and why happened don't matter as much as the fact that we can - and do - love and reason. Given that, to what sould we apply our powers of logic to? To the worship of the non-existent gods?
The nihilists are right that nothing is written in the laws of physics to guide us. Gravity and entropy have no morality. it's like waking up alone on a desert island - what do we do?
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@Ramshutu
I've always taken it as a given that instincts are under genetic control.
Thstshow is not currently available on the BBC web site but it shows up on youtube if you search 'BBC Human Instinct'.
I will certainly be checking it out.
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@PGA2.0
@3RU7AL
I believe they are eventually boiled down to two, God or chance.Which is more reasonable?Then I choose chance.How do you logically eliminate all other possible gods?
I was choosing between God and chance, as that is what PGA offered. But if the choice was between 'gods' and chance i'd still choose chance.
It sesms to me 'God' (or 'the gods') doesn't really help explain anything. If you start with not knowing where the universe came you end up with exactly the same problem but now its not knowing where the gods came from. Except now instead of having to explain the origin of some simple physical laws you have to explain where multi-omni-powered entities came from - or very unreasonably - fudge that problem by giving them some other fantastic property such as 'existing outside time and space' or some other nonsense.
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@PGA2.0
I believe they are eventually boiled down to two, God or chance.Which is more reasonable?
Then I choose chance.
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@Mopac
i am not saying that you or keith are in favor of genociding people.
But you did write
And when they start killing us off, you will probably look away and claim no responsibility.
and
Whatever justifies you consenting to the genocide of my people.
Technically you may not have said we are in favour of genocide, but you did imply were not exacty opposed to it.
And being offended about it won't do any good, because the atheist by nature has embraced a position of arbitrariness. It is they who are really making war, not those who are pointing out the untenability of such a worldview.
I don't think what you said there is offensive - unlike when you accused me of approving of genocide wich certainly is offensive. I think the way you interpret 'Ultimate Realty' and 'The Truth' is muddle-headed and you confuse figurative and poetic language with literal meaning. but don't get offended - it's probably not your fault.
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@Polytheist-Witch
One day I am going to read one of Wisdom's posts.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I hope it's restricted to a few internetters but it does seem that some theists believe atheists want to kill everyone who believes in god. I suppose that they can point to historical examples where (usually) communist regimes have persecuted believers as 'proof' of it.
I would not support any political movement that made atheism or anti-theism its main plank. Perhaps the distiction is between atheism as a belief and as an ideology. Ideologies cause people to lose perpective and to think that 'the end justifies the means'; the result is that ideologues end up behaving in the same way regardless of the ideology they espouse. Hitler and Stalin were supposedly at opposite ends of the political spectrum of left and right, but they were brothers under the skin.
ideological atheism has caused countless deaths, but not because it was atheism but because it was an ideology and killing lots of people is what ideologies do, whter it it is reigious, nationalist, political or any other sort of ideology.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I think I follow this to a certain point. The creation of the modern state of Israel - half a century before I was even born - by people that were intimately familiar with modern interpretations of Biblical end-times prophecy and pushed for such interpretations to be a part of national foreign policy is something that is a very bad thing for a variety of reasons as well as something that I and other secularists would obviously support, therefore I would potentially be in favor of doing such a bad thing again.
You seem to be saying that the creation of Israel a) 'is a very bad thing' and b) 'something secularists would support'. Are you saying secularists support things because they are bad? I'd appreciate a restructuring of that convoluted sentence - my parsing ability isn't upto untanging it!
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@Fallaneze
I'm not quite so sure... it's true you can't measure the morality of an act with a simple device but you could quantify how much harm or benefit accrues from it. That would give you a rough measure of it's morality. By identifying and measuring other real, quanifiable effects we could refine our estimate of morality of an act's as much as in required.
That would possibly fail for some things that are sometimes referred to as 'moral issues', wherethere is no (or litte) actual harm or benefit but it goes against a convention or norm, such as cross-dressing in public.
I'd say 'moral' issues divide into '[proper] morality' and 'petty morality'. Proper morality is concerned with fundamental matters such as murder and theft; petty morality is concerned with the host of arbitrary rules all societies need in order to function smoothly, ie essentally 'customs'. If you go abroad you can be sure the same 'proper morality' will apply - nowhere is wanton murder permitted, but it is easy to offend local 'petty morality' by doing what is accepted at home.
I think that discussing 'morality' without making the distiction between 'proper' and 'petty' forms is not all that useful but its rarely done.
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@janesix
That's how I understand it. I would express it by saying 'only the concept of an abstraction exists'.existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.
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@Fallaneze
Morality is both real and abstract.
It's really the idea that morality is 'abstract' I have a problem with. It seems to me 'abstract' is one of those words that gets bandied around without its meaning ever being made clear. You said morality was abstract but temperture wasn't'; but I think may be temperature is an abstraction and it is heat that is real.
What do we mean by 'abstract'? I'm shading towards conceptualism...
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@Polytheist-Witch
If every atheist was a genocidal megaloaniac pedophile it wouldn't prove or disprove the existence of god. If you want to argue god is a useful fiction that is a seperate issue!Of course morality isn't real. Molesting kids is ok. Rape ok. Murder is ok. That is why dictators are usually atheist.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
Is something morally good because humans judge it to be good or because it is what God wants to be done?
Most of the time what we judge to be good is the same as what god wants, so we humans mistakenly equate something being morally good with our judgement that it is good. But if/when we judge something that god commands as 'not morally good' it is due to our fallible judgement.
It may not be immediately apparent why God wants us to avoid eat shellfish, but we aren't omniscient gods. if we were omniscient we wouldn't need a bible to tell us such things.
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@Mopac
i have no idea why you addressed that remark to me.Whatever justifies you consenting to the genocide of my people.
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@Mopac
Atheists and secularists get killed too.
I think the asimov book is a very good introduction to the bible. i wonder if you have looked at it.
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@Fallaneze
The only difference is that morality is abstract (post #36)morality is objective but prefer to label myself as a moral realist. (post #42)
So is morality real or abstract?
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@Mopac
I think isaac asimov does it better.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
In the case of condemning murder it's the former; in the case of condemning eating shellfish it's the latter!Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?
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