Let's say that a God does exist

[Zetesis Apistia]

This is not an argument for the existence of God. This is not a trick to say gotcha. Just curious as to your response. No levity please. Here is the scenario......

You die and all of the sudden you find your self still consciously aware in a spiritual dimension that is foreign to the world in which we live. You are suddenly apprehended by an angelic host and carted off to a courtroom of sorts....You are then seated before a judge (God). God then asks you to plead your case before he makes his decision on your eternal destiny. What would be your response?

[Zetesis Apistia]

[Replying to post 114 by Zetesis Apistia]

Eyewitnesses???

Under what evidence??

Decades of believer's embellished stories never to be written down until later in the next century in another country in another language???

and no copies of them in original form or authors??

and they claim to have eyewitness?

You have no idea how weak on convoluted the process of information is with the claims of biblical manuscripts.......

You do understand that much of what is in our history books comes from weak sources. How many of those do you discount? Lets take Alexander the Great for example. We have far less to prove any of those claims than we do of the Jesus claims. Are you skeptical of those claims as well?

[PghPanther]

[Replying to post 114 by Zetesis Apistia]

Eyewitnesses???

Under what evidence??

Decades of believer's embellished stories never to be written down until later in the next century in another country in another language???

and no copies of them in original form or authors??

and they claim to have eyewitness?

You have no idea how weak on convoluted the process of information is with the claims of biblical manuscripts.......

You do understand that much of what is in our history books comes from weak sources. How many of those do you discount? Lets take Alexander the Great for example. We have far less to prove any of those claims than we do of the Jesus claims. Are you skeptical of those claims as well?

This is a common response to such a discussion and I will explain the fault in that position.............Alexander the Great is a historical figure.........there is no claim to divinity and/or authority that demands a decision to worship him or suffer condemnation...........so the evidence that demands what he did in history is not unprecedented.........(like all the miracles proclaimed to Christ)..........Are you aware that both Caesar and Alexander the Great have documents proclaiming them to be born of a virgin?....................do you think anyone believes such nonsense??

We throw out such claims and accept what they did in history as something any human could do if they were that person.

There are more manuscripts of the gospels than any other documents in antiquity which is not a asset but a huge liability because they are in conflict with each other and embellished with so many outrageous claims of the supernatural that even the early church had to canonized what they would establish as traditional dogma in order to eliminate the 100s of Jewish and Gentile sects of Christ followers all in conflict with each other's theology...what you hold in your hand today is a collection of manuscripts that began with Constantine's Roman command of Christianity as a state religion that lead to this consolidation and compromising of a biblical canon that people today assumes was divinely inspired word of God.

The 4 gospels were chosen for the canon to consolidate three church movements.....the Petrus (or followers of Peter)........the Paulines (Paul followers) and the Johniannes (claiming John as Jesus's favorite) that were all in conflict with each other let alone all the other sects.............Constantine wasn't interest in truth but in consolidation and control of what would be taught to unify all followers.......

If there was truth........we'd only need one gospel not 4 of which 2 are copies from Mark and known as the synoptic gospels.............and John which was debated for over 400 years of whether to include in the bible because of its outrageous divinity claims........

[olavisjo]

.

Which part of ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ do you disagree with?

Do you also disagree with 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'?

Good questions........even the most conservative evangelical scholars know that any quotes by Jesus.....particularly those in the gospel of John, are at best paraphrased if not made up as a church confession such as in the gospel writers of John. You realize we have no existing original gospel manuscripts?.......and that they are not authored?...........the names given to the gospels come from the 2nd century early church by Ignacio’s (sp?) in an attempt to match them to something that "fits" what they thought of their personality traits....................you do realize that the gospel of John is now acknowledge to be written by multiple authors of the early Johianne church and that all "I" statements claimed to be stated by Jesus are not quotes at all….. but are confessions by the writers of what they believed Christ did represent to their faith...."I" in the sense that it is stated in John is a deictic phrasing of the first person of Christ that is representing "we" as in the believers professing church confession....all scholars and most clergy that study in seminary know of this from the original Greek but do not share this information with their congregation for obvious reasons.........More passionate born again Christians desiring to be ordained in their calling have left the seminary or became agnostic/atheist from the results of learning the history and truth behind scriptural scholarship never matched up to what they were told and believed outside of that scholarship.

If you take your current day English translation of your bible as the "word of God" you are claiming a revelation of faith that is not seeded within the reality of the dubious past of historical manuscripts....it is as presupposed truth without critical analysis to see if it merits such a commitment to those manuscripts……….it is worship of the bible and not God.

This is what I would challenge God if I met him face to face…….why did God use such a convoluted process to provide a revelation? That is what I would want God to answer………..(of course after 44 yrs as a born again Christian and now an atheist I give no credence to such a question but that was the one asked that started this thread)

BTW......Love your neighbor as yourself is a fine if your neighbor is not a sociopath....because in that case they would abuse your kindness, use you up and not feel a sense of guilt about it in any manner.............science has now found a genetic marker in humans that finds the potential of 3% of humans to have that personality trait........of course ancient scriptures and their stories know none of this.....

So that commandment knowing what we know today should be stated.

"Love your neighbor as yourself, only if they demonstrate empathy to comprehend your actions."

Biblical presupposed claimed truth has been convoluted over history to begin with but even if it wasn’t it is becoming more and more irrelevant to what science has revealed about the nature of reality today.

We would be best as a species to attribute the bible in the same manner we do Aesop’s fables or Greek mythological stories……….having some intrinsic value but not to be taken as literal truth.

That is a good answer, but not to the question that I asked. All I wanted to know is, do we have an obligation to be good to each other, especially the less fortunate in society?

[czyz]

First, I don't believe there is a judgement after death. Even as silly as some of the Old Testament stories are, at least there is no punishment after death. Only when Jesus is on the scene does the fun continue after death.

I would say that if there is a god we were not provided much evidence of her existence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[PghPanther]

That is a good answer, but not to the question that I asked. All I wanted to know is, do we have an obligation to be good to each other, especially the less fortunate in society?

Sorry I misunderstood the intent of your question.........I had presumed you were defending scripture by quoting scripture is the reason I explained what I did.........However, if you are contemplating the actual meaning of the text in regards to we have a moral imperative that matches such content that is separate from a revelation but in fact has its basis in naturalism the answer is most definitely yes...........

I'll explain the foundation of altruistic behavior from a natural prospective and then further that to the specifics of those verses....

Humans are a highly evolved mammalian social species requiring a long term nurturing process as a result of our superior survival skillset that is based on cognitive rather than physical traits. This bond is established early in life and strongly reinforced through the mother/child relationship of trust. This is a strong reinforcement to seek trust in those that are trustworthy. The infant brain makes this connection through pattern seeking identification of the face (imprinting) associated with the source which reinforces the desired behavior.

The mature human brain does the same, but also uses language and behavioral observation more so than just pattern seeking to establish this bond. Humans hardwired to trust bonding through maturation learn to extend this behavior beyond the parent to other family members, tribes, groups, etc. It is altruism (cooperation/trust of each other) that was critical to the survival of the human species as over 98% of the time we’ve evolved first into hominids millions of years ago and then to our modern human form (homo sapiens sapiens) about 100,000 yrs. ago that was critical to our survival. As a result, the genetic drift favoring altruistic behavior through the millennia of natural selection through environmental pressure has resulted in the hardwiring of those traits in a ubiquitous manner to form the moral construct of our conscious today. It is this conscious that provides the basis for our moral laws.

The real question is how did this survival skill set of altruism morph into a moral construct that not only favors our survival but even extends to our care and concern for those members who are not critical to that survival? That answer resides in the ability of the highly cognitive functionality of humans over all other species. We have the ability to take that which is biologically imprinted into our brains and expand it to an abstract level of consciousness. For example: humans have developed a creative process in which we can represent our reality in painting. Such as drawings on a cave wall by early humans. But even more than just the representation of reality we can extend that reality to the abstract in that we have many forms of art (painting in this example) that are expressive to our emotional condition that extend beyond just trying to replicate reality. We see this within the art form of painting such as impressionism surrealism and other abstract forms.

Another example, we have the ability to delay personal gratification to the benefit of the group as a result of the altruistic survival skill set in our species; however we have such a high level of cognitive brain function that we can extend that expression in to the abstract…such as delaying gratification in this life for the reward in an afterlife in heaven is an example of this process.

So how does what I explain directly relate to morality for the vulnerable and weak in society from a naturalistic position?

Simple, our ability to extend our care, love and concern to those individual beyond the sake of survival is an extended expression of abstract levels of altruism from our biological imprinting. We are so hardwired for altruism and so developed cognitively that it is easy for us to formulate such an abstraction of this process to where it is solely altruistic with no benefit other than for our social conscious of our species.

[Zetesis Apistia]

[Replying to post 114 by Zetesis Apistia]

Eyewitnesses???

Under what evidence??

Decades of believer's embellished stories never to be written down until later in the next century in another country in another language???

and no copies of them in original form or authors??

and they claim to have eyewitness?

You have no idea how weak on convoluted the process of information is with the claims of biblical manuscripts.......

You do understand that much of what is in our history books comes from weak sources. How many of those do you discount? Lets take Alexander the Great for example. We have far less to prove any of those claims than we do of the Jesus claims. Are you skeptical of those claims as well?

This is a common response to such a discussion and I will explain the fault in that position.............Alexander the Great is a historical figure.........there is no claim to divinity and/or authority that demands a decision to worship him or suffer condemnation...........so the evidence that demands what he did in history is not unprecedented.........(like all the miracles proclaimed to Christ)..........Are you aware that both Caesar and Alexander the Great have documents proclaiming them to be born of a virgin?....................do you think anyone believes such nonsense??

We throw out such claims and accept what they did in history as something any human could do if they were that person.

I don't know, there were some pretty outrageous claims made of Alexander. But at any rate, people will fabricate just to sell more books. We know that. So how do you know what is fabrication and how do you know what isn't in any ancient text? The fact is with many you can't be sure, but I doubt that you approach anything other that the bible with skepticism as far as ancient texts go.

There are more manuscripts of the gospels than any other documents in antiquity which is not a asset but a huge liability because they are in conflict with each other and embellished with so many outrageous claims of the supernatural that even the early church had to canonized what they would establish as traditional dogma in order to eliminate the 100s of Jewish and Gentile sects of Christ followers all in conflict with each other's theology...what you hold in your hand today is a collection of manuscripts that began with Constantine's Roman command of Christianity as a state religion that lead to this consolidation and compromising of a biblical canon that people today assumes was divinely inspired word of God.

The 4 gospels were chosen for the canon to consolidate three church movements.....the Petrus (or followers of Peter)........the Paulines (Paul followers) and the Johniannes (claiming John as Jesus's favorite) that were all in conflict with each other let alone all the other sects.............Constantine wasn't interest in truth but in consolidation and control of what would be taught to unify all followers.......

If there was truth........we'd only need one gospel not 4 of which 2 are copies from Mark and known as the synoptic gospels.............and John which was debated for over 400 years of whether to include in the bible because of its outrageous divinity claims........

Determining what would and what would not be canon was a very careful process. Most of these events were still very fresh in the minds of people when these things were written. It would have been difficult to pass off things that weren't true. The men that wrote the new testament were risking their lives for Jesus and you want me to believe they would risk it for a lie. Every Apostle except for one was killed for their beliefs and you want me to believe that they willingly died for something they didn't believe? Remarkable.

[Zetesis Apistia]

First, I don't believe there is a judgement after death. Even as silly as some of the Old Testament stories are, at least there is no punishment after death. Only when Jesus is on the scene does the fun continue after death.

I would say that if there is a god we were not provided much evidence of her existence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Typically emotion doesn't attach itself to our expression of false claims. When you say her is that meant as an insult, which would include emotion, or do you really believe God is a her?

[czyz]

Do you believe God has a gender? Pure spirit is not aligned to any sex. Him, her, it, all of it is the same.

[PghPanther]

[Replying to post 114 by Zetesis Apistia]

Eyewitnesses???

Under what evidence??

Decades of believer's embellished stories never to be written down until later in the next century in another country in another language???

and no copies of them in original form or authors??

and they claim to have eyewitness?

You have no idea how weak on convoluted the process of information is with the claims of biblical manuscripts.......

You do understand that much of what is in our history books comes from weak sources. How many of those do you discount? Lets take Alexander the Great for example. We have far less to prove any of those claims than we do of the Jesus claims. Are you skeptical of those claims as well?

This is a common response to such a discussion and I will explain the fault in that position.............Alexander the Great is a historical figure.........there is no claim to divinity and/or authority that demands a decision to worship him or suffer condemnation...........so the evidence that demands what he did in history is not unprecedented.........(like all the miracles proclaimed to Christ)..........Are you aware that both Caesar and Alexander the Great have documents proclaiming them to be born of a virgin?....................do you think anyone believes such nonsense??

We throw out such claims and accept what they did in history as something any human could do if they were that person.

I don't know, there were some pretty outrageous claims made of Alexander. But at any rate, people will fabricate just to sell more books. We know that. So how do you know what is fabrication and how do you know what isn't in any ancient text? The fact is with many you can't be sure, but I doubt that you approach anything other that the bible with skepticism as far as ancient texts go.

There are more manuscripts of the gospels than any other documents in antiquity which is not a asset but a huge liability because they are in conflict with each other and embellished with so many outrageous claims of the supernatural that even the early church had to canonized what they would establish as traditional dogma in order to eliminate the 100s of Jewish and Gentile sects of Christ followers all in conflict with each other's theology...what you hold in your hand today is a collection of manuscripts that began with Constantine's Roman command of Christianity as a state religion that lead to this consolidation and compromising of a biblical canon that people today assumes was divinely inspired word of God.

The 4 gospels were chosen for the canon to consolidate three church movements.....the Petrus (or followers of Peter)........the Paulines (Paul followers) and the Johniannes (claiming John as Jesus's favorite) that were all in conflict with each other let alone all the other sects.............Constantine wasn't interest in truth but in consolidation and control of what would be taught to unify all followers.......

If there was truth........we'd only need one gospel not 4 of which 2 are copies from Mark and known as the synoptic gospels.............and John which was debated for over 400 years of whether to include in the bible because of its outrageous divinity claims........

Determining what would and what would not be canon was a very careful process. Most of these events were still very fresh in the minds of people when these things were written. It would have been difficult to pass off things that weren't true. The men that wrote the new testament were risking their lives for Jesus and you want me to believe they would risk it for a lie. Every Apostle except for one was killed for their beliefs and you want me to believe that they willingly died for something they didn't believe? Remarkable.

There are only stories that all of them gave their lives.........no extra biblical collaborated facts confirm any of it.......

Second, people give their lives all the time for beliefs that are false...........do you think the guys who died in 911 will see all those virgins in heaven?

[olavisjo]

It is altruism (cooperation/trust of each other) that was critical to the survival of the human species as over 98% of the time we’ve evolved first into hominids millions of years ago and then to our modern human form (homo sapiens sapiens) about 100,000 yrs. ago that was critical to our survival. As a result, the genetic drift favoring altruistic behavior through the millennia of natural selection through environmental pressure has resulted in the hardwiring of those traits in a ubiquitous manner to form the moral construct of our conscious today.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that we don't have an obligation to care about each other, but people who did care for each other had a better chance of surviving and passing that trait on to their children. So morality is an illusion, compliments of our evolutionary past.

If this is how you feel, there is very little I can say to you to convince you that morality is no illusion and we really do have an obligation to care about each other.