Question for Atheists/Naturalist

[For_The_Kingdom]

It has happened often, within the past 100 years, that if you ask an atheist if he believes in God, he will often say something like "No, I don't believe in God, but I also don't believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy". So, the belief in God is compared to the belief in fairy tales and such. My question is, do atheists really believe that belief in God is the same as believing in Santa Claus, or is such a statement just an over-the-top, facetious quip?

When you ride past a Church on Sunday, and you see dozens of cars in the parking lot as members are gathered inside for Sunday services as they worship their God...is that equivalent to riding past a dentist and seeing cars parked in the parking lot as the members inside share stories about a geniune belief that they have of the Tooth Fairy?

Now, if I saw cars outside the dentist and the people gathered inside for such...I would probably think they are crazy, or at least, childish in their thinking. Why? Because I don't think a rational adult with common sense can believe in such a thing.

BUT, is that the same way that someone with an atheist perspective will look at us (Church members) who are gathered inside a Church to talk about/worship a geninue belief in God?

Like, if you are an atheist who doesn't believe in God whatsoever...what do you think about those that do? Do you look at them as lost, crazy, duped, all of the above?

Some of you on here are probably former believers? Do you sometimes think, "Man, thank goodness I don't have that "God" umbrella over me anymore. I can't believe that I actually BELIEVED that nonsense".

I don't want to fuss or fight...I just want to see your thoughts.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 86 by For_The_Kingdom]



[center]
Just following God's orders:
Part Two[/center]

They tried that defense at Nuremberg... didn't work for them. "Just following orders" doesn't seem to be good enough for modern people.

I guess I am drawing a distinction between "just following orders" from modern people...and "just following orders" from the Almighty Supreme Being of the entire Universe and Everything that Exists.

But I guess some people don't think such a distinction is necessary. *shrugs*

Hmmm.

Drawing a distinction between everyone on the planet and the one thing you are advocating for. Have you heard of the logical fallacy called " Special pleading"?

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/too ... l-Pleading


We are discussing the MORALITY of God's actions, and you try special pleading.

____________

Questions:

• 
  1. Why is God a special case, or in other words, the one exception to the rule?
  
  2. How does absolute MIGHT confer MORAL GOODNESS?
  
  

____________

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 82 by rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 71 by For_The_Kingdom]

So, if I defined YOU as a necessarily existing being...does it follow that it is possible for you to exist necessarily? No, not at all.

Are you going to try and present us with a formal logical argument (i.e. premises and a conclusion) to prove my existence, but in a pre-amble define me in such a way that I necessarily exist anyway before the argument proper?

I would truly love to see that formal argument.
Would be about TIME that some theists get that serious about their arguments.

What I usually get are quite sloppy messes for arguments.

[For_The_Kingdom]

So let me get this straight. It's not necessarily incompatible to call someone/thing 'good' while admitting at the same time to not understanding that thing?

To sum it up; I maintain that God is "good" while at the same time acknowledging that I do not fully understand him and all of his ways.

Sure. Agree to disagree then?

Yup.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 92 by For_The_Kingdom]



[center]
Knowing and not knowing at the very same time: A contradiction.
Part One[/center]

So let me get this straight. It's not necessarily incompatible to call someone/thing 'good' while admitting at the same time to not understanding that thing?

To sum it up; I maintain that God is "good" while at the same time acknowledging that I do not fully understand him and all of his ways.

You maintain to know something about God while at the same time, you admit to not knowing God's ways or God's characterisitcs.

Knowing and not knowing at the very same time is contradictory.

____________

Question:

• 
  
  How do you square the circle?
  
  

____________

[For_The_Kingdom]

Are you going to try and present us with a formal logical argument (i.e. premises and a conclusion) to prove my existence, but in a pre-amble define me in such a way that I necessarily exist anyway before the argument proper?
Still a cheat.

In a pre-amble, I can define you in such a way that you necessarily exist, but once you are plugged in to the syllogism, the truth value of whether or not you actually necessarily exist will show its ugly head...and it will be proven to be FALSE after all.

Just because you are "defined" with a necessary existence does NOT mean that your existence will magically become necessary based off of the definition.

Necessary existence does not and cannot belong in the definition of the entity that one tries to prove exists using a formal logical argument. Doing so violates the entire purpose of the argument.

Before the presentation of the argument, I simply defined the relevant terms as it related to the argument. You guys (atheists) are known for needing to be spoon-fed every single term...such as "define what you mean by God"...."define what you mean by life".

And now when I go through the trouble of actually defining terminlogy before the argument is presented...it is still a problem?

SMH.

All humans are sinful vs Jesus was without sin. Seems to me Jesus isn't human then?

Jesus is God in the flesh...who lived life on Earth without sin.

Also think about the reason you just gave for why human sacrifices weren't allowed. It's not anything to do with it's, yucky, it's harmful, there's no point, it's evil etc...but because humans are sinful.

Right, and to God, sin is yucky, harmful, and evil.

Meaning that if humans were not sinful, we could sacrifice each other without a problem?

Makes no sense. If humans were not sinful, we wouldn't need to offer any sacrifices for sin atonement, would we?

See, so quick to object to something, that you don't stop to think about the folly of your statements.

How do I say this...but are you? I don't mean to sound crass, but what you just said before about Job and his attitude doesn't speak to me that you are actually sorry to hear about my situation with my sisters. Remember, you just said that Job was fine with losing his first batch of children, because he'd see them later in heaven

Bruh, you are grasping at straws here. What I said was; once Job found OUT that it was all in God's hand and God was using him for his divine will, Job did not have any quams about it.

Again, I don't expect you to understand how Job could be ok with what happened after finding out that God orchestrated it. It is something that only a believer would understand.

(by the way, I could've sworn that [early?] Jewish belief doesn't involve a heaven or meeting dead loved ones later), suggesting that this is how you see the situation yourself.

It isn't about what I suggest...it is about what the Bible clearly teaches...a Resurrection of the dead with the righteous going to Paradise/Heaven.

Now, if I assume anything, I am assuming that if I am fortunate to make it to Heaven, I will see family/friends that was also fortunate to make it to happen...and I am quite sure that Job had the understanding that his lost ones were in a better place and after all, the Almighty was in control.

Call it a hunch.

If I was to think like you, I shouldn't be sad that I've gone 20 years without seeing my oldest sister because hey...I'll see her again after I die.

Hey, I hope you see your sister before you die...and if both of you are covered by the blood of Christ, you will be reunited with one another in Heaven.

Does naturalism promote wife-beating? Funny, didn't hear about that at the last meeting...

Even if they did, would it be wrong?

Wait...I have to be told that Action X is wrong? That's the only validity you'll accept for why someone doesn't do a given action, if they're told to by someone else?

Regardless of who told who...even if you told YOURSELF that Action X is wrong...why would it be wrong?

My eyebrow is raised at this, because the Bible promotes just that 'speciest' view, in that we humans are supposedly God's most beloved children, so loved that he sent his only begotten son to die for us and all that jazz. Indeed, I've heard from numerous Christian personalities that if we ever do encounter extra-terrestrials (for real), then we cannot consider them as having been saved by Jesus, because Jesus only died for those descended from Adam i.e. humans.
Projection much?

Um, the Bible is clear that Jesus died for the sins of mankind...and it doesn't matter if you are Black, White, or Candy Stripe...if you are accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, you are saved.

God's children is anyone who does the will of God.

Second, I don't know about extra-terrestrials...even if they do exist and they have free will, there may be another road to salvation for them..I don't know.

This still doesn't work, because how you do determine that this 'higher standard' is indeed even higher to begin with, while at the same time admitting that you lack any qualification to do so given your own finite created status?

I have arguments based on undeniable evidence that there exists a Supreme Being of this Universe who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

This to me makes as much sense as me declaring that my next door neighbour speaks perfect Swahili and should be allowed to teach it in classes, while admitting that I know not a single word of the language.

What if you saw a certificate at your neighbors house from a "higher learning" institution which states that your neighbor is a certified teaching instructor of the language of Swahili?

So at that point, you can determine that based on the evidence, your neighor can speak Swahili (I don't know about perfect), and you can tell make such a declaration despite not knowing a single word of the language.

Appealing to a higher standard won't work anyway, because then you're just chucking the entire process of moral evaluation out the window and essentially following orders. This is a problem with the way the US has set up its nuclear launch capability. At present, there is a way for US military personnel to verify that orders given to them to launch nukes are indeed given by the president. However, there is no way for them to verify whether the president is sane when he gives those orders. There was a major sacked in the 1970s for asking how he could verify the president's sanity.If you leave the process of moral evaluation up to some other being, don't do it yourself, how are you any different than a robot? Why are you not taking the risk of evaluating something morally, taking the risk of getting it correct or incorrect?

You can conjure up any scenario you want, brethren. The fact of the matter is, if objective morality exists, a transcendent lawgiver is necessary.

How does one justify the answer of yes? How does one verify it?

I have no idea as to how to verify whether or not God spoke to someone or not.

No. Stop. That does nothing to answer my question. Pretend right now you're outside and a man steps up to you with a gun. He points the gun at you. He says "God says you have to die".
How do you know whether or not God really has said for you to die? How do you know whether or not God did indeed instruct the shooter to shoot you?
The only correct answer is you don't know. We cannot know. If you reply with some variation of you'd allow the shooter to shoot you, this basically invites any person to shoot another and you'd give them the defence of 'God told me to'.

No. YOU stop. I will say again, I don't have to know the motives as to why someone commits a crime. If God tells a man to kill me, then the man is obligated to kill me. Point blank, PERIOD.

And on your view, there is nothing objectively wrong with killing/murdering someone. It happens all the time in the animal kingdom...and on naturalism, what are we? Nothing more than mere ANIMALS.

As an aside, watch this clip from the Atheist Experience (1 min 42 secs long)

Also try this one
(15 mins long) but she gets her point across in the first minute or so

Its funny you mention the Atheist Experience...because when you pulled that "No. Stop." crap above, it reminded me of Matt Dillahunty of the show...since that is what Matt does when he wants to dominate the conversation.

I figured that is where you got it from. LOL. I will probably check out the clips when I get to the crib later.

As humans, we hold each other to a standard in pretty much all societies. If someone is being harmed, raped, murdered, we expect other humans to do what they can to try and mitigate it.

That still doesn't explain a damn as to how these "standards" we are binding each other by are objectively right/wrong.

I'm not a law expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if Person A rapes/murders Person B while Person C stands there, says or does nothing at all and C is treated as an accessory to the crime.

And?

Also think about what you said. You said that someone can do an action here on Earth and then later, after death, be punished for it. This implies to me that God doesn't intervene on Earth, will only react in the after-life.

Um, no...the Scripture is filled with individuals being punished by God in THIS life.

What does this say about prayer? What about the numerous times people say they've prayed to be saved from this aggressive person and that somehow, God intervened to help them?

If I am reading you correctly...it obviously says that prayer apparently works.

I am facepalming right now, because you refuse to look at this argument from the ISIS member's point of view. What do you think he'd say about YOU? He'd say the exact same thing. He'd say 'the one TRUE God (Islamic)...or the bootleg, fake version (Christian)'.

And I am facepalming right now because, as I pointed out to you in another post..something along the lines of "we will have to find out the truth value between Christianity/Islam".

Do you not remember me telling you that? We find out truth value first, and that will determine the fake, bootleg version. Remember that?

So then he's not the executioner.

Tell that to King Herod (Acts 12:23).

[For_The_Kingdom]

"It means EVERYTHING."

What you describe is an almost TOTAL bias... that you need to confirm above all else.
You are not describing critical thinking, but ... dogmatic adherence to a belief.

I do enough critical thinking on here for me to occasionally have a hiccup of dogmatic adherence to my belief.

[For_The_Kingdom]

Hope I got this part right.
What comes next?

Next up: Is it possible for Blastcat to have a necessary existence?

You don't have to call me "sir".
You can just go ahead and call me "Mister Blasctat, sir".

SMH.

[Divine Insight]

I'd like a response to my post #57, please. I put to much intellectual juice in it for you to completely IGNORE it.

Ok, here you go:

Again, if absolute in this context isn't synonymous with objective, then I have no idea what you are talking about.

That's fine with me, I'll accept your semantic limitations for our conversations here. But I have already shown you via Einstein's Relativity that things that are objective (i.e. things that can be experienced and measured) do not need to also be absolute. Time dilation is just one obvious example. Time is certainly objective but it's clearly not absolute.

But I understand that for you theistic arguments you are demanding that of something is objective, then it must also be absolute.

So for our conversations then Objective = Absolute and Absolute = Objective. We can use these terms interchangeably since they basically mean the same thing in this context (according to you).

So, ok, let's go with that then.

Divine Insight wrote:

That just goes to show you that most people think that "objective" means "absolute" when in fact it doesn't

.

So everyone else is wrong but you? Gotcha.

False claim and misrepresentation on your part.

Uneducated layman may THINK that objective and absolute mean the same thing, but clearly in physics they don't. In physics we have direct observations of phenomena that is clearly objective but NOT absolute.

So all you are attempting to do is bring me down to your level of understanding of the world. I am nowhere near alone in my understanding of the difference between the terms "objective" and "absolute" when used in a formal scientific setting.

The whole scientific community understands this as well.

I guess your boy Sam Harris didn't "stop to think about it", then.

An uncivil degrading comment on your part intended to belittle both myself and Sam Harris. Sam Harris fully understands that objective and absolute do not mean the same thing. Clearly you don't.

And thats my point...if absolute morality and objective morality don't mean the same thing, what exactly is the difference between the two? I still don't have a definition as to what absolute morality means.

You are the one who is demanding that an ABSOLUTE morality exists. You are the one who is confusing objective to mean "absolute".

If we as humans create a concept of morality without any need for any supernatural God, then the system of morality that we have created is "objective" (i.e. it actually exists in the physical world because we have created it). But that doesn't make it absolute. To the contrary it can be quite dynamic and could even change over time.

What you are demanding is a supernatural God who's moral system is the ultimate authority can does not change over time. If your God existed you are demanding that his morality is BOTH objective and absolute.

In fact, you seem to be more focused on your God's morality needing to be absolute, than anything else, because you can't seem to even begin to consider the idea of a relative moral system. In fact, that is your whole argument for the need for a God, because you can't allow that morality might be flexible or malleable.

So your focus in on a need for an ABSOLUTE morality.

Still don't know what absolute morality means...

It's a morality that never changes and can't be challenged. Precisely what you are attempting to argue for. So you know precisely what it means.

But that definition doesn't say anything about those distinctions being absolute or even objective for that matter. The definition you just gave would work for subjective morality. Very Happy

You said "whether or not morality can be said to be "objective" depends entirely upon how you define morality"...so...I defined "morality".

Exactly. And the definition you gave for "morality" didn't require that it be either objective or absolute. A totally human subjective invented morality would satisfy the definition you gave.

So you can hardly argue against subjective opinionated morality based on your definition of morality.

Here is the definition you gave:

Now, if a defintion of morality is what you want, fine..

Morality: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

That is the first definition that popped up when I Googled "Morality", and I accept that definition as described.

Where does it say in that definition that those principles need to be either objective or absolute? According to that definition totally opinionated subjective principles should do just fine.

Right, then morality is based upon individual preference...so when a serial killer strangles 18 women, that was just his preference. Gotcha.

There is no "absolute moral authority". At best all we can say about the behavior of the serial killer is that his actions are not in agreement with the moral consensus of the society at large. That's all we can say about it in terms of morality.

Moreover, if we have secular laws against strangling women then we can say he broke the law and must face the consequences we have made for breaking that laws. In this case no moral judgments are even required at all.

Morality isn't even required to make laws. In fact, many laws exist that have nothing at all to do with morality. For example if I fail to pay my property taxes the laws says that I can be fined, incarcerated, or stripped of my property. That law is REAL (i.e. it's objective), but it has absolutely nothing at all to do with morality.

So the making of laws has nothing to do with morality.

In your scenario a purely secular society can arrest and convict the serial killer for having broken the their laws. They would have no need whatsoever to pass any moral judgements on the killer. If you wanted to pass moral judgement on the killer that would be your own subjective opinion.

Morality has nothing at all to do with making laws.

So that definition works just fine for subjective morality as well.

Sure would. But not objective.

Once again you are using the term "objective" here to mean "absolute". You are attempting to claim that subjective opinions on what might be deemed to be moral by individuals are not all the same, therefore they don't represent an "absolute" morality. A morality that can only have a single absolute position on any moral question.

The problem here is that you can't imagine morality being opinion. You have come to view morality as being so concrete and absolute that it can't possibly be open to opinion. But that's only because you are dedicated to a theology that demands that this must be true. There is no "objective" reason you can point to why a concept of absolute morality needs to exist.

Where would you point to any "objective" evidence for such a thing?

You can't. There is no objective basis for an absolute morality.

Fair enough as long as you aren't thinking in terms of absolutes. In other words, if there is no God who claims to be the ultimate authority, and you have more than one GROUP, then those different GROUPS may very well disagree on what they consider to be right and wrong or good and bad.

Right!! And if you don't have that transcendent ultimate authority judge, who's morals/values isn't dependent upon social/biological conditions and/or evolution and the laws of nature...then absolutely EVERYTHING becomes subjective and not only that, but nothing essentially matters anyway.

I totally agree with the part of your quote I highlighted in blue. Everything concerning moral judgement is indeed subjective. That is precisely what secularists hold to be TRUE. And since this is the reality of our situation we need to learn how to work with it. That's the whole point. Pretending that there is a Santa Claus God in the sky that we can claim loans his support to our subjective moral opinions is absolute nonsense and must recognized to be absurd and without merit.

The part of your quote I highlighted in RED is nothing more than your own subjective opinion, and one that I not not personally agree with.

So in other words, if a giant comet suddenly collided with the Earth and completely demolished it and the entire Earth was destroyed....did the Holocaust really matter? Did how I lived my life really mattered? Did it matter whether I lived my life as Adolf Hitler, or Mother Teresa?

Of course your life isn't going to matter to you after you are dead. But hopefully it matters to you while you are alive.

I say no, it doesn't matter. So why don't I just live my life by doing whatever pleases me, since there is no moral accountability (on a cosmic scale), and once I die I will simply cease to exist.

Would you like to be like Hitler? Is that how you would like to live your life?

Is the only thing that is keeping your from doing horrific things the threat of moral accountability after death?

How do you explain atheists who are loving caring people?

Also, who do you think a "God" who is interested in decent moral people would be more pleased with: An atheists who is a loving caring person because that's who they choose to be on their own? Or a theists who would rather be pillaging, raping and murdering, but only refrains from doing so because he thinks that a "God" might give him a spanking in an afterlife if he did what he would really like to do?

I can't imagine a God who cares about morality being more pleased with a retrained psychopath, than with a loving caring atheist. To the contrary the opposite seems far more likely to me.

Clearly not all humans need to be curbed from extreme hostility and violence by threats of being spanked in an afterlife.

Evidently some humans genuinely are loving caring people.

Why don't I just be a serial killer, after all, there is nothing objectively wrong with such actions...that would be no different than a lion deciding "you know what, these hyenas are a thorn in my ass...so let me just go on a rampage and exterminate every single hyena, one by one".

Literally, no difference (on naturalism).

Your argument that you need a God to keep you from hurting people doesn't impress me in the slightest. In fact, it concerns me deeply. If that's that only thing preventing you from becoming a serial killer, then I certainly hope you remain in your faith of fear for the rest of your life.

You're certainly not going to convince me of your religion with this argument because I have no desire to harm anyone.

Also, if you discovered tomorrow that there is no God would you instantly become a serious threat to our society? That's scary to be sure.

Because if a God can't "take credit" for being good then he has nothing to do with it.

He may not "take credit" for being good, but he "takes credit" for demanding the goodness of his subjects and it is based on his goodness that justice will eventually come.

You seem to be so focused on your own fear of God spanking you that you've totally missed the point I'm making. If God has no choice but to be inherently good, then he can hardly be held up as being a God who stands for goodness. Apparently there would need to be some higher "objective goodness" that is already forcing God to be good.

So God himself would need a higher "God" to keep him good, and so on infinitely.

Besides, you then have the theological "Problem of Evil". How did evil ever get started if our Creator God is all good? Evil couldn't have come from God. And it most certainly couldn't have originated from anywhere else since God was all that existed in the very beginning. So theology has this extreme "Problem of Evil" that they can't answer.

Naturalists don't have any "Problem of Evil". They don't claim that there is any source of absolute good, and therefore they have no need to explain how imperfections came to be (which is ultimately what we label as "evil"). So in Naturalism imperfections (i.e. what we call evil) would naturally exist.

So a naturalist only need to point to the imperfect world in which we live as clear evidence that this world wasn't created by a "Perfect Creator".

Evidently something greater than God would be forcing God to be "good" whether he likes it or not.

Not at all. God is an expert at being himself, and goodness is himself.

Opinionated nonsense. Moreover if God is all good and he is the sole creator of all that exists, then from whence came "badness"?

Your move.

You had even demanded that God must be good by "necessity". A God who has no choice but to be good can hardly 'take credit' for a character nature that he has no control over.

I fail to see the flaw here lol.

I'm not surprised. Thus far you have failed to see the point of many of ever flaw I've pointed out with this fairytale religion.

Fine with me. A God that can "do bad" if he pleased would be a God who can decide, "you know what, I should just torture Divine Insight for absolutely no reason whatsoever, I just feel the urge to torture someone".

I would rather have a God that "has no choice but to be good" than a God that can freely chose to do bad.

But hey, maybe thats just me.

I agree. I would rather have a God who can only to good too.

If we're going to dream up a God why don't we do that? In fact, Buddhism already has a God who is totally righteous, unlike the God of the Bible.

In fact I have always said, If there is a good God then I'm good to go.

The Christians actually demand that there God is a hateful mean and unjust God who would do vile and hateful harmful things to me if I simply don't believe in the particular Christian's personal interpretations of Hebrew Mythology.

To be blunt, if your God would damn me then your God is no damn good.

Right, and I also understand that based on your view, someone can break in your house, bind you, rape your wife in front of you...and no matter how much you disapprove of such actions, on your view, there is still nothing essentially "wrong" with what the guy is doing.

"Wrong" with respect to what?

I can certainly say that it's wrong with respect to my personal opinion.

In fact, in my current social situation I can also say that it's "wrong" with respect to the secular laws. (although that would hardly be a moral judgement).

And by the way, what GOOD would it do you is someone bound you, raped your wife in front of you, and you screamed at him. "What you just did is wrong in the eyes of God!".

Would that make you feel better about the situation?

Also, why wouldn't your God have intervened earlier to prevent this person from carrying out this harmful act? If your God is omnipotent and omniscient and didn't do anything to stop this atrocity then he's no better than the person who carried it out.

Well, that's what you are attempting to do. You are attempting to claim that there is a God who is the "Absolute Moral Authority". And yet ironically you have also claimed that God has no choice but to be this way, therefore there must be some even higher moral authority that forces your God to always be good.

See, and that is the point that I try to make, when I can. Even though theists/naturalists have a love/hate relationship...we share at least one thing in common...we both believe in the nature of necessity.

I disagree. Different naturalists have different ideas of what naturalism means to them. And that is necessarily true in naturalism because no naturalist can lay claim to holding any absolute truth. It's just a subjective worldview by nature. [/quote]

Theists: God is necessary

This is a claim that theists have never been able to demonstrate to be true. It's nothing more than total wishful thinking on their part. An imagined hope and dream.

Naturalists: The universe (nature) is necessary

You are misrepresenting the Naturalist's position. The naturalists aren't saying that the universe necessarily had to exist. They are simply saying that since the universe obvious does exist, the acceptance of its existence is necessary if you want to make any statement about it.

That's totally different from claiming that it was absolutely necessary that a universe had to have come into existence in the first place.

By "necessary" in this context, I simply mean cannot fail to exist. So if God is necessary in his existence, then he doesn't own his existence to any higher being, power, or entity.

So no, God can't be anything else but himself...a necessarily good being.

I totally agree. But once again, you aren't talking about anything other than a totally imagined concept that theists are trying to claim "Must Exist". There is no evidence that any God exists at all, much less one that is "necessarily good".

This is nothing more than theists hoping beyond hope that such an imaginary entity might exist.

Moreover, if they want to claim that an "All Good" God must necessarily exist, then what is there argument for why an "All Bad" God must not also necessarily exist?

They may as well be saying that Santa Claus must necessarily exist.

What good is the "bulk of humanity's opinion" to a Supreme Being who rules the entire universe?

This is a meaningless question since it has never been shown that a Supreme Being who rules the entire universe has ever existed.

If he does exist, then where is he? And why isn't he ruling the universe if that's what he's supposed to be doing?

Well, I guess if objective moral values don't exist, and you admit that everything is subjective...then we just have to agree/disagree.

Exactly. So in other words, you concede that you haven't make any progress in your argument for why you think there needs to be an ultimate authority of morality. And apparently you can't provide any compelling evidence for your claim. Otherwise why should we have to just agree to disagree? You should be able to PROVE you claims.

Apparently you can't. This leaves us with nothing left but subjective opinions to fall back on, which has been my position all along.

Your entire argument is based upon "God does not exist because he doesn't meet my standard of morality".

This is a totally false misunderstanding of my position.

To begin with I don't even claim that no "God" can possibly exist. I only reject the Biblical God with absolute certainty.

Secondly, my rejections of the Biblical God are not even based on the moral difference between myself and the Biblical God. My rejection of the Biblical God is due to its very own self-contradictions concerning its own moral proclamations.

Moreover, the God of Buddhism is far more in line with what I personally consider to be moral values. So if I were going to turn to a religion the God of Buddhism would be a far wiser choice for me. After all, why would I turn to a religion that has a God who does things that appear to be grossly immoral to me? That would be ridiculous.

So then the question of "why SHOULD God meet your standard of morality?"...and not only that, but God could STILL exist DESPITE not meeting your standard of morality.

Well, for one thing, if a God doesn't meet my standard of morality then that God could hardly be called a "moral God" based on my standard of morality. So such a God would not be moral in my view.

So, yes, it is important that a God that is claimed to be "moral" matches up with what I consider to be moral. Otherwise, it would necessarily be an immoral God.

So your argument fails either way. That is why the problem of evil is such a failure, because it fallaciously appeals to emotions and the proponent of the argument has no foundation at which he/she bases such an argument.

Secularists and Naturalists have no "Problem of Evil". The "Problem of Evil" belongs solely to the theists. If you don't start out with the premise that the creator of all that exist is "Perfectly Good", then you have no "Problem of Evil".

So the "Problem of Evil" belongs solely to theology and has no meaning outside of that.

Also, I should point out that Buddhism has solve the theistic "Problem of Evil" without any need for any contradictions. If you want a religion that has solved the "Problem of Evil" you should look into Buddhism.

Christianity hasn't solved the "Problem of Evil" at all. This is still a major problem for Christian theists.

So now you are claiming to have a God that you don't even understand.

Who in their right mind would say that they "understand God"?

Well you have a Bible that describes how your God has behaved for thousands of years, and how he supposedly expects you to behave. If that doesn't qualify as having some understanding of your God, then what would?

Moreover, you've even been claiming all along that you understand that your God must necessarily be "Good" and that your God must necessarily exist.

Can you please explain how you understand these attributes that you claim your God must have?

You can hardly make countless claims about what your God must be whilst simultaneously claiming to have absolutely no understanding of how he could be everything you claim that he must be.

Well, if I accept that you don't understand your own God then why should I even care what you might have to say about your God? According to you all you could be doing is GUESSING, because you've just confessed that you don't even understand your own God.

I know what I know, and I don't know what I don't know.

The problem I see is that you haven't been able to give any compelling evidence or rational explanations for the things that you claim you do know about your hypothetical God.

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your lengthy post. I just looked it over and all it amounts to is more arguing on your part that morality needs to be absolute, etc.

Here's a question for you:

Why should I even care about your views on morality?

In you own words you posted the following:

I say no, it doesn't matter. So why don't I just live my life by doing whatever pleases me, since there is no moral accountability (on a cosmic scale), and once I die I will simply cease to exist.

You're asking me why you should live a decent life if there is no God?

Apparently you have no moral values at all.

Apparently if there is no God who can give you a spanking morality would be totally irrelevant to you and you would see no reason to treat other people with love and kindness.

So I see no reason to give any merit to anything you have to say about "morality".

You have basically just told me that if there is no God, then you cannot make a decent argument for why it might be "wrong" to torture innocent babies.

You're only argument right now seems to be, "It's wrong because if you do it God will give you spanking after you die".

That's hardly an impressive argument for morality.

[For_The_Kingdom]

You want me to TRY to make a a bald, bold, baseless assertion?

I have to wonder why I would want to waste my time doing that?

I don't know...I can't speak for you...why would you?

You don't think I can make things up out of thin air and pretend to you that they are real?

I think you can.

I think you made a hasty assessment of the truth of the proposition, my friend.

So, all possible necessarily true propositions must be actually true? You got beef with that proposition? Explain why.

The proposition you call "true" above, represents VERY bad reasoning.. I used it as an example of the same fallacious reasoning you have been using with "necessary being" . You should rethink this.

I don't recall any such examples.

Your thinking is very flawed.

How?

It's actually saying that everything that possibly exists actually exists.

No, it is actually saying that everything that possibly necessarily exists, actually exists.

Don't know how/why you could leave out such an important term, considering the subject matter.

Yeah, it's a tricky bit of logic, for sure.
The word "possible" is tripping you up.

No, it isn't, as I will school you on shortly.

Let me give it a whirl:

1. Everything that possibly exists, may exist, or may not exist.

True.

2. Everything that is possibly necessary might be necessary or might not be necessary.

Nope. Right there. Can't even get past the first two premises without the proposition being all jacked up. Again, you clearly don't understand the nature of necessity and what it means to be necessary, philosophically speaking.

Everything that is possibly necessary cannot also be not possibly necessary. If it is possibly necessary, then it is IMPOSSIBLE for it to not be possibly necessary.

So after just two premises in, the syllogism failed. So everything you deduce after that also fails..so no point in me responding to anything else related to the syllogism.

You missed the point entirely.
I suggest you re-read my statement.

Um, no I didn't. You said "If it's possible for matter to exist, then it does." That statement, at face value, is simply NOT TRUE...because matter can easily NOT EXIST despite it being possible for matter to exist.

Now, if that is not what you meant, then at best the statement is ambiguous.

The two CONTINGENCIES here is matter MIGHT exist, or it might NOT exist.

I'm sorry but um, saying "matter might exist, or it might NOT exist" is completely different than saying "If it is possible for matter to exist, then it does".
I don't see any equivalency whatsoever between the two propositions...and if you do, then we just simply disagree.

I now have to question if you know how to use the word: "contingency". I suggest that you start using that dusty old dictionary.
Would be a start.

No need to question my understanding of anything on this subject. I spent the entire preface of my MOA thread distinguishing the difference between contingency/necessity...so I don't need any lectures from a guy on "how to use the word contingency" when he can't even get past two premises of his counter-argument without being fallacious.

IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT IF X EXISTS POSSIBLY THAT X NECESSARILY EXISTS.

Excuse me, but who in the HELL said that "if X exists possibly, that X necessary exists??

Who said that? That is NOT what I said. So not only are you having a difficult time forming a logically sound/valid syllogism to prove your own point, but you can't even accurately represent the argument that you are trying to hard to refute with mines.

Yet you have the nerve to come across with this snotty/facetious attitude as if you are doing something. SMH.

[Blastcat]

You want me to TRY to make a a bald, bold, baseless assertion?

I have to wonder why I would want to waste my time doing that?

I don't know...I can't speak for you...why would you?

I wouldn't.
You tell me.. you said I should try it
NOT my idea





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