Morality Without God?

[Danieltwotwenty]

So I don't see your point, God does not recognise nationality hence it is not genocide. God ordered the destruction of some humans who were depraved individuals with no chance of redemption, which the Israelites recognised as certain nationalities.

Bye bye free choice....

Errr you think they were forced to be depraved then????????

How exactly was there no free choice, you assert with no explanation.

Again God doesn't recognise a man made nations, we are eternal souls that belong to him.

God doesn't recognize man made nations, but he has a personal attachment to the JEWS which are called the CHOSEN PEOPLE. Ok...

Point being?


Dan

[BryanH]

Errr you think they were forced to be depraved then????????

How exactly was there no free choice, you assert with no explanation.

'Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.Amen.'

Do you get the point now?
Sometimes God chooses to kill sinners and sometimes he choose to save them. People have no choice...

Point being?

God does recognize nations as he recognizes the JEWS as his CHOSEN PEOPLE. Clear now?

[Danieltwotwenty]

Errr you think they were forced to be depraved then????????

How exactly was there no free choice, you assert with no explanation.

'Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.Amen.'

Do you get the point now?
Sometimes God chooses to kill sinners and sometimes he choose to save them. People have no choice....

Freewill has to do with accepting God's love or rejecting it, what does freewill have to do with life and death. God may decide to end my life today or in 50 years, how does that effect my freewill to be or not be in a relationship with God?

Point being?

God does recognize nations as he recognizes the JEWS as his CHOSEN PEOPLE. Clear now?

Err no it is not clear at all, you seem to be saying that God created a nation out of some people and yes you are correct God did do that, what has that got to do with God recognising man made nations?

"Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him."

Mark 12:17 indicates that God cares not for man made institutions like money, governments, nations etc... etc....


Dan

[BryanH]

@Danieltwotwenty

This discussion is getting derailed so I think we should better stay on topic

[Danieltwotwenty]

@Danieltwotwenty

This discussion is getting derailed so I think we should better stay on topic

True dat

[PaulSacramento]

In the same thought, Jlay, there would be no accountability if chemicals in the brain alone are what defines love and the GR. You have nothing, nothing to look forward too, all good deed and bad deeds are merely nothing. For example, brutal sexual pedophilia murder is no no more wrong than Mother Teresa giving all to feed the poor/shelter the abused. There is no accountability in the naturalist materialist view, unless humanly defined, but even that allows a brutal sexual pedophilia murderer to have gotten away with the deed because when you die and you die and then, well, nothing. You know then, Life's a B---ch, then ya die - becomes the new morality. We live in it now. Human derived GR provides no accountability.

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By that reasoning, where is the accountability for a "brutal sexual pedophilia murderer" who asks forgiveness from Jesus? In God's eyes all is forgiven and wiped away like it never even happened...right?
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Where on earth did you get that idea?
God forgives those that ask forgiveness AND repent of their sins.
Repentance doesn't just mean "feel sorry about what they did", it means accepting the consequences of their actions and making amends for them.
Think of it this way:
You did something horrific and you realize that and now ask God for forgivness and you repent, that repenteance means that the full FORCE and WEIGHT of what you have done becomes self-realized, you feel/understand/bare ALL the pain that you h ave caused and you are compelled to seek forgiveness from those wronged and to make amends in whatever way possible.
People speak of "just repent" and you'll be fine as if the act of repentance comes "free" and with no consequences.
When one truly seeks forgiveness and truly repents, God's Holy SPirit awakens them to ALL they have done.

[PaulSacramento]

Actually, if we are to take the bible as literal and concrete (that is another story of course) then Yes, according to the telling of the great flood in Genesis, God did commit Genocide when He killed "all the inhabitants" of Earth.

[jlay]

Nothing is more obvious than the fact that Craig is assuming the philosophical position of moral realism. His argument reduces to this:

1) If God does not exist, then moral realism is false.
2) Moral realism is true.
3) Therefore God exists.

But he can't state it with this simple clarity because his ploy is to deceive his philosophically ignorant audience by assuming their common-sense realism as if it were the only possible philosophic view. WHAT A FREAKING JOKE! It looks like it is time for a brief review of a few of the elementary facts any REAL philosopher, unlike Craig, would know. His tactics are transparent to anyone with the most elementary knowledge of philosophy. Here are a few of the views that he conveniently leaves out of his argument so he can deceive people with his false dichotomy between Theism and Philosophical Realism. His argument would have no force to convince anyone if he stated his naive realism in the context of all the other possible views:

And I could go on of course. You would do well, jlay, to get your "philosophical" friend up to speed. I have explicitly said that I believe in objective morality. I have never written a word denying objective morality. I have never written a word that would indicate I am a nominalist. And can you guess why that might be? Here, let me help - BECAUSE I AM NOT A NOMINALIST! Duh.

Craig designed his argument to take advantage of the philosophically ignorant. It has absolutely no philosophical merit whatsoever. Only the ignorant could be duped into promoting it. His argument is filled with gaping holes from beginning to end. He has been totally debunked on the blog called Ethical Realism written by a man who believes in moral realism but rejects the idea that it must be grounded in God.

No. You said you believe in OM in the weak sense, and we covered the definition, to which you agreed. Not in the strong sense, being that Craig believes that moral values refer to something that exist independent of the mind. In other words that there is something outside of man and his concepts. So, in that sense you can say you believe in OM, but as you already admitted in the strong objective sense, you would be equivocating.
As one who leans towards Thomism, obviously I would take exception with some of what Craig says, sense he favors Platonism. But even if you debunked Craig’s argument (which I don’t think is the case) it doesn’t prove your own. Calling Craig’s position a “freaking joke” and a “ploy” is just a joke in itself. You’ve just resulted to name calling and sophomoric attacks. So, we could chase rabbit trails, but it doesn’t prove anything.
My friend said at the minimum you hold to nominalism. So, you are welcome to explain what you do hold, and then that would also provide us a better framework to examine your moral argument.

[Byblos]

Paul you seriously baffle me (and trust me, I'm not easily baffled ).

First you come up with an absolute gem like this one:

Where on earth did you get that idea?
God forgives those that ask forgiveness AND repent of their sins.
Repentance doesn't just mean "feel sorry about what they did", it means accepting the consequences of their actions and making amends for them.
Think of it this way:
You did something horrific and you realize that and now ask God for forgivness and you repent, that repenteance means that the full FORCE and WEIGHT of what you have done becomes self-realized, you feel/understand/bare ALL the pain that you h ave caused and you are compelled to seek forgiveness from those wronged and to make amends in whatever way possible.
People speak of "just repent" and you'll be fine as if the act of repentance comes "free" and with no consequences.
When one truly seeks forgiveness and truly repents, God's Holy SPirit awakens them to ALL they have done.

Then you immediately follow it with this:

Actually, if we are to take the bible as literal and concrete (that is another story of course) then Yes, according to the telling of the great flood in Genesis, God did commit Genocide when He killed "all the inhabitants" of Earth.

Seriously, what is up with that man?

[PaulSacramento]

Paul you seriously baffle me (and trust me, I'm not easily baffled ).

First you come up with an absolute gem like this one:

Where on earth did you get that idea?
God forgives those that ask forgiveness AND repent of their sins.
Repentance doesn't just mean "feel sorry about what they did", it means accepting the consequences of their actions and making amends for them.
Think of it this way:
You did something horrific and you realize that and now ask God for forgivness and you repent, that repenteance means that the full FORCE and WEIGHT of what you have done becomes self-realized, you feel/understand/bare ALL the pain that you h ave caused and you are compelled to seek forgiveness from those wronged and to make amends in whatever way possible.
People speak of "just repent" and you'll be fine as if the act of repentance comes "free" and with no consequences.
When one truly seeks forgiveness and truly repents, God's Holy SPirit awakens them to ALL they have done.

Then you immediately follow it with this:

Actually, if we are to take the bible as literal and concrete (that is another story of course) then Yes, according to the telling of the great flood in Genesis, God did commit Genocide when He killed "all the inhabitants" of Earth.

Seriously, what is up with that man?

Note what I said:
IF we take the bible as LITERAL AND CONCRETE...
Fact is that there is no reason for us to take ALL of the bible that way since it was not written that way.
For us to take something in it's literal sense we must first KNOW what type of literature it is, yes?
One thing I have found is that bible literalist AND bible critics have in common is their reluctance to do just that.

[RickD]

Hi Spock.

Thanks for taking the time to try to understand what I'm saying. Hopefully I can properly convey what I mean. You believe the GR, not God, is the source of OM. What you are actually saying, is that Christ who is God, is the source of the GR, and therefore God is the source for OM. Let me show you:

Spock wrote:
I have never said the Bible does not say that Christ is God. Though it is rather ambiguous on that point, I think the best fit to the Biblical data is that it says Christ is God.

But the mere fact that the Bible says something does not imply that it is true, so what's you point?

My point is that you are arguing against what you believe the bible says. So let's stick to what you are saying that the bible says. You wrote:

Spock wrote:
I find it curious that that Golden Rule makes no sense to you. Christ hung the entire divine revelation upon it! How is it possible that its truth is not immediately self-evident to you?

So, you believe Christ hung the entire direct revelation upon the GR. Let's continue. You then wrote:

Christ got the GR from his direct perception of Truth just like everyone else who sees it. If that Truth is God, then he got it from God but that doesn't mean that his conception of God, which was steeped in Jewish tradition, was correct.

Now, you have agreed with me that the bible says Jesus Christ is God. So therefore, since you are saying that the bible says Jesus is God, and you also say that the bible says, talking about the GR, "Christ hung the entire divine revelation upon it!", how can you then logically say "Christ got the GR from his direct perception of Truth just like everyone else who sees it."?
If you're arguing about what the bible says, and the bible says Christ is God, then Christ would be the "origin" of truth, or OM.

Put it this way:
According to what you believe the bible says:
Christ is God.
Christ hung the entire divine revelation upon the Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule is objective, or from God.

Why would God hang the entire divine revelation upon something that He was not the origin of?

Spock wrote:
ETA: OK - I'm guessing you are saying that the OT picture of God is false because the NT picture of God in Christ is so much better. Is that it?

No, that's not what I'm saying. My point is that you just admitted from what I wrote above, that Objective Morality comes from God.

[Butterfly]

Plus as Spock said, just because the Bible says something, doesn't make it right, right?

Infact I am going to challenge you on this.

If I can not use the Bible as truth, and proof and evidence that what is says is true, then you can not use the Bible as well for the same reasons, you are denying me to use it. If "just because the Bible says so, doesn't make it right" is the rule for me, then it goes for you too.

Anyone can use the Bible as truth if they can prove it is. There are many true words of wisdom contained in the Bible, just as there are in many other historical and wisdom books written by men. If you are going to use the Bible as a book of divine truths then you must prove it so.

Once again, just because the Bible says something does not make it true in reality...it must be proven.

If you say God committed genocide using the Bible as proof, that the event in question ACTUALLY happened, then I am also free to take events and treat them as FACTUAL, actually happened events, and you would have to concur, events like the Resurrection, hearings, miracles etc and many more things which are written are true and factual, or else I will ask you to provide me with evidence that such an event as the genocide in question, actually happened to begin with.

Are we clear on this? Either you can use the Bible and I can too, else we both CAN NOT use it because just because the Bible says so, doesn't make it true.

I am speaking within the context of the Bible, which is far different from saying an event actually happened in real life. My points have always been IF the god portrayed in the Bible DID what the Bible says he did then I judge him accordingly. Example: the Bible says that God decreed the whole human race to be exceedingly wicked and said he would destroy them all. Consequently, I say that the god of the Bible committed genocide by the very definition of the word.

Gen.6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

I am not saying that the Flood actually happened, because I don't believe it did...what I am saying is that the god of the Bible is portrayed as committing genocide within the context of the Bible.
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[Byblos]

Paul you seriously baffle me (and trust me, I'm not easily baffled ).

First you come up with an absolute gem like this one:

Where on earth did you get that idea?
God forgives those that ask forgiveness AND repent of their sins.
Repentance doesn't just mean "feel sorry about what they did", it means accepting the consequences of their actions and making amends for them.
Think of it this way:
You did something horrific and you realize that and now ask God for forgivness and you repent, that repenteance means that the full FORCE and WEIGHT of what you have done becomes self-realized, you feel/understand/bare ALL the pain that you h ave caused and you are compelled to seek forgiveness from those wronged and to make amends in whatever way possible.
People speak of "just repent" and you'll be fine as if the act of repentance comes "free" and with no consequences.
When one truly seeks forgiveness and truly repents, God's Holy SPirit awakens them to ALL they have done.

Then you immediately follow it with this:

Actually, if we are to take the bible as literal and concrete (that is another story of course) then Yes, according to the telling of the great flood in Genesis, God did commit Genocide when He killed "all the inhabitants" of Earth.

Seriously, what is up with that man?

Note what I said:
IF we take the bible as LITERAL AND CONCRETE...
Fact is that there is no reason for us to take ALL of the bible that way since it was not written that way.
For us to take something in it's literal sense we must first KNOW what type of literature it is, yes?
One thing I have found is that bible literalist AND bible critics have in common is their reluctance to do just that.

Ah, I see what you're trying to say. Thanks for the clarification.

[Spock]

No. You said you believe in OM in the weak sense, and we covered the definition, to which you agreed. Not in the strong sense, being that Craig believes that moral values refer to something that exist independent of the mind. In other words that there is something outside of man and his concepts. So, in that sense you can say you believe in OM, but as you already admitted in the strong objective sense, you would be equivocating.

I have no recollection of any conversation with you concerning "strong" vs. "weak" realism, so I searched this thread and confirmed that we never had any such conversation. If I missed something, please quote our exchange. I don't even know what you think you mean by that distinction. If you want to base your argument on it, you must at the very least define your terms. But be forewarned - there are a wide variety of ways to separate realism into "strong" and "weak" forms and there is no consensus on the validity of such distinctions. This is why your bald assertion that you and I have settled this issue is so mind-numbingly absurd, especially since it is predicated on a conversation we never had.

And as for your love affair with the word "equivocate" - it is CRAIG who equivocates, in spades. He doesn't even bother to inform his audience that their naive realism might have some philosophical problems and that there are many other possibilities and that there is nothing like a philosophic consensus on this question. Yet it is the foundation of his argument. And worse, if we accept the definition you say he is using for "objective" then his argument fails because God is a mind and so if morals are grounded in his mind, they are not "independent of mind." That's why Craig often equivocates on his definition of objective and has to invent a question-begging definition carefully designed to eliminate all minds except God's. This has been exposed just like many of his other errors in this article:

The first question to ask here is, “what does Craig mean by ‘objective’”? Here’s the definition from Reasonable Faith:

To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independent of what any human being believes. Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong independently of whether any human being believes them to be so (p. 173).

This is a silly definition. On this definition, someone who believes morality is whatever space aliens tells us it is counts as a believer in objective morality. A more sensible definition would be something like “morality independent of what anyone says or thinks.” And I do think morality has to be objective in something like that sense.

Craig’s reason for defining “objective morality” the way he does is that he wants to claim the only moral theory that works is one based on God. Craig is trying to rig the definition of “objective morality” to favor God. But not only would this be ruled out by a sensible definition of “objective morality,” Craig’s moral theory is in fact completely insane.

In short, Craig’s moral argument depends on claiming that his insane theory of morality is the only possible one. I could move on to the next argument now, but I want to say a couple things about how Craig argues for premise (2) of his argument. Frequently in his debates, his entire argument for premise (2) is to cite atheists who (he claims) agree with him about (2).

This is a terrible argument because many atheists, as well as some theists like Richard Swinburne, disagree with Craig about (2). This has been frequently pointed out to Craig, but he has yet to drop his appeals to authority.

I concur with his conclusions. They are self-evident. Craig's errors are legion. He supports his second premise with nothing but fallacious appeals to authority and the assertion that it is "obvious" and that "we all know it." His pseudo-philosophical ploys have been exposed.

My friend said at the minimum you hold to nominalism. So, you are welcome to explain what you do hold, and then that would also provide us a better framework to examine your moral argument.

If that is what your friend said, then your friend is a philosophical fool of the first order. It indicates he has no understanding of the complexity of the issues we are discussing. Indeed, it proves he does not even understand that realism vs. nominalism is a false dichotomy because there are many other possibilities. No serious thinker could come to that conclusion from what I have written in this thread, let alone assert it as if it were "at a minimum." No serious philosopher would baldly assert such a presumptuous and preposterous claim which directly contradicts my own words.

[Spock]

If you're arguing about what the bible says, and the bible says Christ is God, then Christ would be the "origin" of truth, or OM.

Put it this way:
According to what you believe the bible says:
Christ is God.
Christ hung the entire divine revelation upon the Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule is objective, or from God.

Why would God hang the entire divine revelation upon something that He was not the origin of?

If the Bible is true, then yes, Christ got all his teachings from God. But I don't believe that everything the Bible says is true, so what's the point?

Furthermore, even if we assume the Bible is true, that doesn't mean that OM and the GR are grounded in God except in the trivial sense that "everything" (including all sin) is grounded in God because he is the Ground of Being. There are theists who believe in OM but deny that it is grounded in God. For example, James W. Grey has an MA in Philosophy. He runs a blog called Ethical Realism. He is a theist (of the Baptist variety) and he believes in OM but explicitly rejects Craig's argument. Indeed, he shreds it into its constituent incoherent fragments. Click the link to see for yourself.