The atheists best argument?

[Peter_Plato]

And I am sure that people who imagine themselves to be the recipient of that “greater joy” might be comforted by this. But would you comfort the weeping mothers of Egypt, who had just lost their firstborn, with this explanation?

The explanation to the mothers of Egypt who had “lost their firstborn” would be the same explanation by which those same mothers themselves were born and had their firstborn.
The God who has the power to take life has the power to give it in the first place.

It seems to me that the real comfort is in knowing that it is all under control, even when things don’t necessarily go the way we want. Crucially, the Control is all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful.

I find more comfort in knowing that than in thinking nothing is in anyone’s control.

The One by whom those mothers lost their firstborn is the same One that gave them their firstborn to begin with, along with giving them the power and capacity to love and cherish their firstborn. The point is that Egyptians shouldn’t cherish their own firstborn to the point of making it extremely difficult or insufferable for Hebrew slaves to cherish theirs.

 

[Aloysium]

Well, no that isn’t my perspective at all.

My perspective is that God isn’t the kind of thing to merely have a “perspective” in any sense that is analogous to our “perspectives.”

If Christ (God) is the light that enlightens all men, then any perspective that we might possibly have is ultimately founded and underwritten by God. In other words, we “see” through and by God. He is the pure Ground of Being that makes “perspective” a possibility at all.

There are no independent “perspectives,” there are merely distortions on seeing properly, on seeing correctly, blindnesses of some kind or other. It is these blindnesses we euphemistically call “perspectives.”

If God’s ultimate goal is for us to see things properly “in him and through him,” then his endeavor is more like correcting our vision, not giving us a “different perspective,” but eyes to see. We are innately seeing FROM the right place, the correct perspective as it were, it is just that we are constantly trying to see things from other perspectives (blind spots) which simply blur our vision and avoids how we supposed to see in the first place: to see rightly from a genuine, uncontaminated place at the centre of Being Itself.

Evil is the existential unmooring of beings from Being Itself, from Light Itself, from Truth Itself.

The problem of evil for God isn’t a heuristic one, it is an existential one – regrounding each of us so that we see with and through “the mind of Christ.”

Morally speaking, God isn’t engrossed in the problem of child abuse, per se. That is merely symptomatic of a much larger problem. It isn’t what child abusers do that is the fundamental issue, it is what they are, what they have made themselves. God, then, must work with each individual to remake or reground them in himself. That isn’t done merely by stopping or outlawing symptomatic behaviour. The symptomatic behaviour is only that - symptomatic – it tells us that something more fundamental is wrong. But what needs to be fixed is not addressed by masking symptoms, by stopping particular actions or behaviours. The symptoms need to be revealed so that the real problem is made obvious.

God doesn’t fix people by stopping sinful behaviour, he heals by changing the fundamental ground upon which they exist, from which they see, their “perspective” – from one of being unhinged to one of being grounded in Ultimate Reality, Himself.

If we take the human approach to medicine – relief of pain or stopping the annoying symptoms of unwellness, then we might say God is a good doctor in that he wants to see and show us all of the symptoms that ail us so that we might become concerned about the real disease that afflicts us.

He isn’t about hiding the “evils” behind a facade of “good,” he wants to cure the evil at its very source, that upon which we ground our own, and necessarily false and distorted, “perspectives.”

Thanks.

 

[truetofaith]

Well…I’ve got degrees in this subject and I’m paid to write books and articles about it, and many are of the same mind as I am.
Perhaps you and I just understand the connections differently.

But I have a feeling you are simply going to say your view is right and mine is wrong.
If so, I don’t think Plato would be so pleased with your debating method!

.

The only thing I enjoy about your posts, DaddyGirl is the picture of Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin.

 

[Peter_Plato]

“This killing is justified because we are killing evil people” - Every genocide ever.

Are you saying that killing evil people is never justified?

Or that there are no possible situations under which killing evil people is ever necessitated?

 

[wanstronian]

Your first quote in post #142 has my name on it but I never said it. Please don’t attribute to me things I never said.

I think most decent people would apologise for making that mistake.

I guess we can all draw our own conclusions from the fact that Tony didn’t deem it necessary.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s one small step from self preservation to the emegence of societies. Which cannot survive without a sense of what we would describe as morality. They evolve together.

It’s no wondwr that evolution is a banned topic. The more you read, the more you learn, the more frequent those little ‘aha’ moments. The more times you stop, put down the book or the iPad and think: ‘So that’s why we do that…so that’s why this always happens…so that’s why we believe this or that…’.

A reasonable study of the Subject That Can’t Be Discussed and you wouldn’t need to ask such questions again.

The “Subject That Can’t Be Discussed” does an extremely inadequate job of prescribing to which moral system we ought, as moral agents, to subscribe -– which is the central concern of moral agency. In fact, it only tries to explain how moral systems arose in the first place and fails miserably at that, as well.

 

[goout]

Moral authority?

Sigh.

Of course atheism says nothing about doing good or evil. Atheism is not a philosophy or religion or psychological structure.
It is simply the disbelief in any Gods. Period.

.

This is not true.
Atheism is a belief structure with similarities to any other. Atheism makes a proposition for truth. It has absolutes, or one absolute at least: “There is no God”. It also makes an implicit claim to for human reason as an absolute.
It has a philosophy and a psychological profile and structure. It is not an organized religion necessarily like Christianity, but it has similarities to religion.

And of course that is all deniable for the atheist. Atheism denies itself with a constant “no” to any question that challenges it’s inconsistencies.
And of course it is unreasonable to deny one’s self and one’s nature.
(The self-evidence for all this is the very presence of atheists on a Catholic message board proselytizing Christians day by day, debating “what is truth”.)

 

[Tomdstone]

Are you saying that killing evil people is never justified?

Or that there are no possible situations under which killing evil people is ever necessitated?

It is not clear who is evil and who is not evil. Are all witches evil people? What about socialists? Are socialists evil people? Who are the evil people? The Nazis thought that the Roma were evil and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were evil. ISIS thinks that many infidels are evil and it is necessitated and justified to kill evil people. Is ISIS right?

 

[Wesrock]

Were the Nazi’s evil? Or is ISIS?

Even those examples aside, are you saying it’s never possible to tell?

 

[Aloysium]

It is not clear who is evil and who is not evil. Are all witches evil people? What about socialists? Are socialists evil people? Who are the evil people? The Nazis thought that the Roma were evil and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were evil. ISIS thinks that many infidels are evil and it is necessitated and justified to kill evil people. Is ISIS right?

You clearly portray the absurdity of relativistic morality.

 

[Tomdstone]

You clearly portray the absurdity of relativistic morality.

Was it evil to drop an atomic bomb and to murder thousands of innocent people, including children? Many Americans say no, but many Japanese say yes.
Is it evil to kidnap and torture innocent people in foreign countries? Or is it a good thing to do in time of war?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

“This killing is justified because we are killing evil people” - Every genocide ever.

Yes, as in killing Nazis unless you want to end up being one.

 

[Tomdstone]

Yes, as in killing Nazis unless you want to end up being one.

And is it justified to kill thousands of Japanese children in order to end a war?

 

[Tomdstone]

Were the Nazi’s evil? Or is ISIS?

Even those examples aside, are you saying it’s never possible to tell?

Were Americans evil in the way they conducted the Vietnam war? See:
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (American Empire Project) Hardcover – January 15, 2013
by Nick Turse (Author)
and
Rape was rampant during the Vietnam war.
amazon.com/dp/0805086919/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/rape-wartime-vietnam

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And is it justified to kill thousands of Japanese children in order to end a war?

No, that was an unnecessary crime. I don’t want to divert the discussion to nuclear weapons, but I have always been against the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Japan, and I’ve argued this in other threads. The war was already over, as some of the military brass in WWII were bold enough to admit after the war.

Let’s not get into WWIII about that and the Nazis and Vietnam on this thread!

 

[Tomdstone]

Let’s not get into WWIII about that and the Nazis and Vietnam on this thread!

You brought up the discussion of evil people:

Those persecuted were mainly the Cathari and the Aligensians, very evil people.

You were talking about Nazis

Yes, as in killing Nazis unless you want to end up being one.

Another poster asks whether it is justified to kill evil people?

Are you saying that killing evil people is never justified?

Or that there are no possible situations under which killing evil people is ever necessitated?

If we are going to talk about who is and who is not evil, on this thread, then it is relevant to talk about things like the American Democrats who propose to spend taxpayer money to murder millions of unborn children. Is that not more evil than what the Cathari were supposed to have done? Is not dropping an atomic bomb killing thousands of innocent children more evil than what the Cathari did? Were not the terrible massacres of innocent people in Vietnam more evil than what the Cathari did? If you are going to bring up the Cathari as evil people, then it is only right to consider other examples.

 

[o_mlly]

It is not clear who is evil and who is not evil. Are all witches evil people? What about socialists? Are socialists evil people? Who are the evil people? The Nazis thought that the Roma were evil and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were evil. ISIS thinks that many infidels are evil and it is necessitated and justified to kill evil people. Is ISIS right?

No one is evil in their person. Evil acts are committed by evil-doers. Evil-doers, knowledge, intention and circumstances notwithstanding, are sinners. Sinners have a temporal remedy to regain sanctity.

Are all atheists evil-doers? No. Are proselytizing atheists evil-doers? Yes. Are all evil-doers sinners? No.

CCC #2125 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion. The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. …
Therefore, the atheists best argument is silence.

 

[Aloysium]

It is not clear who is evil and who is not evil. Are all witches evil people? What about socialists? Are socialists evil people? Who are the evil people? The Nazis thought that the Roma were evil and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were evil. ISIS thinks that many infidels are evil and it is necessitated and justified to kill evil people. Is ISIS right?
Aloysium;14116708:

You clearly portray the absurdity of relativistic morality.

Was it evil to drop an atomic bomb and to murder thousands of innocent people, including children? Many Americans say no, but many Japanese say yes.
Is it evil to kidnap and torture innocent people in foreign countries? Or is it a good thing to do in time of war?

I am trying to figure out what you are getting at.

It is clear you do not want an answer to your questions since they are leading to certain points you are you trying to make. Unfortunately, the point of your last post in the quote is lost to me.

Let’s go over this:

You say it is not clear who is evil and who is not evil.
My reply is that it is not unclear at all to Christians.
We are required to love God and one another as ourselves.
When we choose not to do so we damage our relationahip with God.
That is called a sin and the tendency to sin is called evil.

So, I write that this sort of confusion arises when one has a relativistic view of morality.

You go on to list situations where murder and the torture of innocents occur and ask if it is a good thing to do. To me again it is a question that arises when one has no moral compass. You are clearly aware that these acts are wrong.
Organizations can be evil and our cooperation with them does us harm, along with those they would persecute.
The fact is that life is hard, and we have to make very difficult decisions, bringing evil into the world directly and through indifference. That is why Christ died on the cross, that mankind be redeemed and we might all be saved.
There are also situations where the taking of a life most definitely is the right thing to do. It can be very difficult . There is justice and we will receive our just reward.

Bottom line: There is a moral order which we can know through an informed conscience.

I’m going to quote this again, it’s excellent:

. . . If Christ (God) is the light that enlightens all men, then any perspective that we might possibly have is ultimately founded and underwritten by God. In other words, we “see” through and by God. He is the pure Ground of Being that makes “perspective” a possibility at all.

There are no independent “perspectives,” there are merely distortions on seeing properly, on seeing correctly, blindnesses of some kind or other. It is these blindnesses we euphemistically call “perspectives.”

If God’s ultimate goal is for us to see things properly “in him and through him,” then his endeavor is more like correcting our vision, not giving us a “different perspective,” but eyes to see. We are innately seeing FROM the right place, the correct perspective as it were, it is just that we are constantly trying to see things from other perspectives (blind spots) which simply blur our vision and avoids how we supposed to see in the first place: to see rightly from a genuine, uncontaminated place at the centre of Being Itself.

Evil is the existential unmooring of beings from Being Itself, from Light Itself, from Truth Itself.

The problem of evil for God isn’t a heuristic one, it is an existential one – regrounding each of us so that we see with and through “the mind of Christ.”

Morally speaking, God isn’t engrossed in the problem of child abuse, per se. That is merely symptomatic of a much larger problem. It isn’t what child abusers do that is the fundamental issue, it is what they are, what they have made themselves. God, then, must work with each individual to remake or reground them in himself. That isn’t done merely by stopping or outlawing symptomatic behaviour. The symptomatic behaviour is only that - symptomatic – it tells us that something more fundamental is wrong. But what needs to be fixed is not addressed by masking symptoms, by stopping particular actions or behaviours. The symptoms need to be revealed so that the real problem is made obvious.

God doesn’t fix people by stopping sinful behaviour, he heals by changing the fundamental ground upon which they exist, from which they see, their “perspective” – from one of being unhinged to one of being grounded in Ultimate Reality, Himself.

If we take the human approach to medicine – relief of pain or stopping the annoying symptoms of unwellness, then we might say God is a good doctor in that he wants to see and show us all of the symptoms that ail us so that we might become concerned about the real disease that afflicts us.

He isn’t about hiding the “evils” behind a facade of “good,” he wants to cure the evil at its very source, that upon which we ground our own, and necessarily false and distorted, “perspectives.”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

If we are going to talk about who is and who is not evil, on this thread, then it is relevant to talk about things like the American Democrats who propose to spend taxpayer money to murder millions of unborn children. Is that not more evil than what the Cathari were supposed to have done? Is not dropping an atomic bomb killing thousands of innocent children more evil than what the Cathari did? Were not the terrible massacres of innocent people in Vietnam more evil than what the Cathari did? If you are going to bring up the Cathari as evil people, then it is only right to consider other examples.

Satan has plenty of worshippers. We can’t kill them all. But when they threaten our civilization, as the Cathari threatened all human civilizations, all bets are off.

To repeat:

Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia mention of the Cathar heresy:

*The Cathari and the Catholic Church:

The Catharist system was a simultaneous attack on the Catholic Church and the then existing State. The Church was directly assailed in its doctrine and hierarchy. The denial of the value of oaths, and the suppression, at least in theory, of the right to punish, undermined the basis of the Christian State. But the worst danger was that the triumph of the heretical principles meant the extinction of the human race. This annihilation was the direct consequence of the Catharist doctrine, that all intercourse between the sexes ought to be avoided and that suicide or the Endura, under certain circumstances, is not only lawful but commendable. The assertion of some writers, like Charles Molinier, that Catholic and Catharist teaching respecting marriage are identical, is an erroneous interpretation of Catholic doctrine and practice. Among Catholics, the priest is forbidden to marry, but the faithful can merit eternal happiness in the married state. For the Cathari, no salvation was possible without previous renunciation of marriage. Mr. H.C. Lea, who cannot be suspected of partiality towards the Catholic Church, writes: “However much we may deprecate the means used for its (Catharism) suppression and commiserate those who suffered for conscience’ sake, we cannot but admit that the cause of orthodoxy was in this case the cause of progress and civilization. Had Catharism become dominant, or even had it been allowed to exist on equal terms, its influence could not have failed to prove disastrous.” *

 

[tonyrey]

I think most decent people would apologise for making that mistake.

I guess we can all draw our own conclusions from the fact that Tony didn’t deem it necessary.

Once again you are barking up the wrong tree… I have already pointed out that I didn’t attribute it to him - and it wasn’t a mistake. You are obviously unaware of the context:

i: A secular society

is a good defense against the excesses of Talibans and co.(implying that belief in God isn’t a necessary basis for morality)t:In a Godless universe there is no reason why anything exists.t:No response.