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tonyrey
Guest
How can it be morally neutral when it presupposes the reality of “well-being”?
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tonyrey
Guest
If you value freedom the answer is obvious.
We couldn’t!
We are not isolated individuals but members of** one** family.
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DanAl
Guest
Allow me the courtesy to repeat what I said: “The bible does not mention anything about the loss of free-will or that we are somehow determined by original sin.”
How does your post touch anything I said? Before you accuse others of ignorance bother to read and** understand** the post.
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Abu
Guest
As God created angels with free-will some chose to rebel against Him. They were Satan and his cohorts.
The evil was chosen both by some angels, and by our first parents by exercising their free will. This does not nullify the fact that God created our first parents and the world as the epitome of goodness – with freedom to choose good or evil.
Accepting facts is the epitome of sane people who know that God gave angels, some of whom rebelled, the ability to present ideas to our minds. We have guardian angels who help us to choose good and avoid evil, and the fallen angels who present temptations to evil.
That is why real Catholics value freedom so highly – the freedom to choose to exercise faith, hope and charity in love.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Portofino
**
What I normally see, when believers try to show evidence of God’s benevolence, is a subjective viewpoint whereby the good outweighs the bad, and is to be given more weight and importance. That is a subjective assessment, however, not an objective one. Just so, it is a subjective viewpoint to say “the healing of my disease, or the saving of my life” proves that God loves me and cares for me, but the non-healing of my disease, and the losing of my life does not prove that God doesn’t.**
I find your reasoning difficult to follow. For one thing, your writing style is extremely verbose and vague.
Are you implying that the religious point of view is subjective no matter how it is argued, but that the atheistic point of view is not? Surely the atheistic point of view is subjective when it says, without one iota of proof, that God does not exist.
Do you believe that atheism is falsifiable?
**
What I normally see, when believers try to show evidence of God’s benevolence, is a subjective viewpoint whereby the good outweighs the bad, and is to be given more weight and importance. That is a subjective assessment, however, not an objective one. Just so, it is a subjective viewpoint to say “the healing of my disease, or the saving of my life” proves that God loves me and cares for me, but the non-healing of my disease, and the losing of my life does not prove that God doesn’t.**
I find your reasoning difficult to follow. For one thing, your writing style is extremely verbose and vague.
Are you implying that the religious point of view is subjective no matter how it is argued, but that the atheistic point of view is not? Surely the atheistic point of view is subjective when it says, without one iota of proof, that God does not exist.
Do you believe that atheism is falsifiable?
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Portofino
Guest
I’m referring to “well-being” here not in an ultimate salvation sense, but in the sense of “would actually care and want to prevent one’s being tortured or killed,” for example. Sure, you can question that – one can question anything, I don’t deny – as one can question whether it is possible to define what it means to be healthy.How can it be morally neutral when it presupposes the reality of “well-being”?
A pertinent question is whether one can claim to care for someone’s well-being, yet – for example – passively witness them being bludgeoned to death, without interfering and even if one knew that such intervention would not likely place one in harm’s way. Even if I don’t believe in morality, I still can common sensically observe that there likely would be a sense of emotional detachment there, in such behavior, if not downright ill-will.
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Portofino
Guest
No, I’m not saying that the religious point of view is – by definition, and no matter how it is argued – subjective. Nonetheless, I do see Christians often “having it both ways”, whereby they maintain that an answer to their prayers is “evidence” that God loves them and hears them; yet, at the same time, a prayer that is not answered is not taken as evidence that God doesn’t.
I’m more of an agnostic but I understand the atheist point of view in the sense that I believe they put the burden of proof where it belongs. I don’t think the burden of proof is on the atheist to prove a negative (no one, not even a Christian, can prove that “Zeus doesn’t exist”, nor that “Thor doesn’t exist”, unless they adopt the atheist position that “the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence”). Rather, the burden of proof is on the believer in Zeus, or Thor, or Allah, or an immoral, divine Jesus or Mary to show positive evidence for it. If the believer honestly assesses that such evidence exists, then the believer is justified in affirming its existence. But if the non-believer sees no evidence of an immortal Christ, for example – just as, in their own way, Christians see no evidence for an immortal Zeus or Thor – then I don’t think they’re being dogmatic in saying, “in all likelihood, an immortal Christ is not real.” Just so, I don’t think a Christian is being dogmatic (unreasonable, that is) in saying that, “in all likelihood, Zeus and the pantheon of Greek gods are fictions, not realities.”
As for me, personally, I do see some evidence (as opposed to proof) that there may be a higher power, which is why I am more of an agnostic – or cautious theist, even – than an atheist. The evidence I see is more common sense, though, more intuitive; common sense tells me that “every watch must have a watchmaker.” Yet I also know that, in principle, common sense has been known to be mistaken.
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grannymh
Guest
If I may, I suggest that intuitive common sense is actually an inherent ability of the human to recognize the existence of the supernatural or a higher power. “Intuitive” relates well with “inherent.”
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Portofino
Guest
I agree. I think intuition is a word that used far too seldom, these days. Intuition is where you’ve grasped the solution before being able to prove, more methodically and painstakingly, that it is the solution. I imagine that, when a scientist has an intuition, he follows it as a detective follows a lead; sometimes he’s proven right, and sometimes he comes to realize that his intuition (his “hunch”, even) was mistaken (or perhaps it contained a grain of truth to it, but only in part).
I personally don’t see intuitions of a more religious nature as being provable in this way (for me it is more of a private, indeed intimate affair), which doesn’t mean those intuitions can’t one day be proven right (to use a homely but quite congenial example, I quote a stanza from Kermit the Frog’s song the Rainbow Connection
).Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what’s on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it
I know they’re wrong, wait and see.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
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grannymh
Guest
As a child, I had the privilege of seeing a triple rainbow from our backyard. The first was complete. Though some trees were in the way. The second was at midpoint starting down the other side. But the third barely reached the sky. I knew it was complete from some other child’s view. That was my intuition though I did not know that word at that time. Perhaps, that is an analogy for human’s intuition of God’s existence. For some, the intuition is clear and strong. For others, it is there, but it requires some faith to see the whole. For ourselves, we can see only a part. Yet, we know from the rainbow signs of the first two, that there is incredible beauty unseen.I agree. I think intuition is a word that used far too seldom, these days. Intuition is where you’ve grasped the solution before being able to prove, more methodically and painstakingly, that it is the solution. I imagine that, when a scientist has an intuition, he follows it as a detective follows a lead; sometimes he’s proven right, and sometimes he comes to realize that his intuition (his “hunch”, even) was mistaken (or perhaps it contained a grain of truth to it, but only in part).
I personally don’t see intuitions of a more religious nature as being provable in this way (for me it is more of a private, indeed intimate affair), which doesn’t mean those intuitions can’t one day be proven right (to use a homely but quite congenial example, I quote a stanza from Kermit the Frog’s song the Rainbow Connection
Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what’s on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it
I know they’re wrong, wait and see.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Portofino
**Nonetheless, I do see Christians often “having it both ways”, whereby they maintain that an answer to their prayers is “evidence” that God loves them and hears them; yet, at the same time, a prayer that is not answered is not taken as evidence that God doesn’t. **
Actually, the Christian who thinks about this knows that all prayers are answered. As Bishop Sheen used to say, the answer to our prayers will be will be “Yes” or “No” or “Wait.” Moreover, the Christian knows that God loves all of us, and not granting a wish in our prayers does not mean that he is loveless toward us.
I’m more of an agnostic but I understand the atheist point of view in the sense that I believe they put the burden of proof where it belongs. I don’t think the burden of proof is on the atheist to prove a negative (no one, not even a Christian, can prove that “Zeus doesn’t exist”, nor that “Thor doesn’t exist”, unless they adopt the atheist position that “the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence”). Rather, the burden of proof is on the believer in Zeus, or Thor, or Allah, or an immoral, divine Jesus or Mary to show positive evidence for it.
When I was an atheist I used to comfort myself with the fact that I did not need proof that God does not exist. The more I thought about it, the more absurd I thought that position was. If I said to a crowded room full of people that I sensed there was a hungry bear outside the door waiting to devour us all, there would be two reactions necessary to everyone in that room. Prove the bear is outside the door. Or prove the bear is not outside the door.
When the Christian says to the unbeliever that he senses the presence of a hungry God who created the universe and wants to devour us with his love, I would expect to be asked for some kind of evidence that such a God exists and I would try to offer that evidence. But if the unbeliever says “There is no such hungry God, and I don’t have to prove it,” I would think the believer was denying me the same kind of evidence I was offering him.
Why is there no evidence that God does not exist? For the same reason we cannot prove that Zeus does exist. Neither proposition is true. If they were true, it would be possible to prove them.
**Nonetheless, I do see Christians often “having it both ways”, whereby they maintain that an answer to their prayers is “evidence” that God loves them and hears them; yet, at the same time, a prayer that is not answered is not taken as evidence that God doesn’t. **
Actually, the Christian who thinks about this knows that all prayers are answered. As Bishop Sheen used to say, the answer to our prayers will be will be “Yes” or “No” or “Wait.” Moreover, the Christian knows that God loves all of us, and not granting a wish in our prayers does not mean that he is loveless toward us.
I’m more of an agnostic but I understand the atheist point of view in the sense that I believe they put the burden of proof where it belongs. I don’t think the burden of proof is on the atheist to prove a negative (no one, not even a Christian, can prove that “Zeus doesn’t exist”, nor that “Thor doesn’t exist”, unless they adopt the atheist position that “the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence”). Rather, the burden of proof is on the believer in Zeus, or Thor, or Allah, or an immoral, divine Jesus or Mary to show positive evidence for it.
When I was an atheist I used to comfort myself with the fact that I did not need proof that God does not exist. The more I thought about it, the more absurd I thought that position was. If I said to a crowded room full of people that I sensed there was a hungry bear outside the door waiting to devour us all, there would be two reactions necessary to everyone in that room. Prove the bear is outside the door. Or prove the bear is not outside the door.
When the Christian says to the unbeliever that he senses the presence of a hungry God who created the universe and wants to devour us with his love, I would expect to be asked for some kind of evidence that such a God exists and I would try to offer that evidence. But if the unbeliever says “There is no such hungry God, and I don’t have to prove it,” I would think the believer was denying me the same kind of evidence I was offering him.
Why is there no evidence that God does not exist? For the same reason we cannot prove that Zeus does exist. Neither proposition is true. If they were true, it would be possible to prove them.
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Abu
Guest
Antony Flew, a most notorious atheist, now attests to reason and is now a deist.
“I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence,” he affirms. "I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source.
“Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than half a century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.” (There Is a God, 2007, pp. 88-89).
A highly acclaimed work is What’s So Great About Christianity, by Dinesh D’Souza, Regnery, 2007. He cites numerous world-class scientists who reject naturalism and materialism and are theists or Christians.
It’s essential to know that it is only in the West that science developed due to the reason and faith of the Catholic Church. The present worsening in reason and faith is the obvious result of the relativism and secularism following the revolt and so-called Enlightenment – that anything goes.
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Portofino
Guest
Very nicely put. I’ve also looked up, again, the words of Paul – “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” So many have written of this, of course, including figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Blake (“if the doors of perception were cleansed, etc.”).
Plato also does a pretty good job, in his allegory of the cave, and Paul’s words do indeed strike me as more Platonic than Aristotelian.
Vis-a-vis the problem of evil, there is a difference between understanding something conceptually – a belief or an insight that God turns what is evil to good effect – and truly grasping it. I can posit infinity, but I cannot grasp it.
In some sense, the problem of evil is a problem, indeed a paradox, including for those of faith. You know that God is present even in events where God seems not to be (tragic events) but – if you are honest with yourself, I think, and sensitive – you do not always claim to understand how. There is a mystery there, and Christ’s agony on the cross, and his quoting of the Old Testament (“why have you forsaken me”) was not simply for “effect”; in that moment, presumably, even he could not feel the presence of God, could not comprehend God’s ways.
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Portofino
Guest
I did read about that. In fact, I was tickled that he went from atheism to Deism, in particular; that’s kind of like a “half victory” for someone like the Aquinas scholar Feser. But there is still time
Most of the Enlightenment thinkers were Deists, actually. Even Thomas Paine was a Deist. The atheists were the outliers – Diderot (whose atheism disturbed the Deistic sensibilities of Voltaire); David Hume; a Frenchman named La Mettrie; another Frenchman named d’Alembert. Rousseau and Voltaire, the unwitting architects of the French Revolution, both believed in a Higher Power (as did Robespierre, for that matter). I understand the Catholic perspective whereby Protestants and Deists led the west onto the wrong path of secularism and atheism; still, there were wonderful ideas espoused during the Enlightenment, ideas which seemed anathema at the time – including the idea of religious liberty and of tolerance (tolerance in the very pragmatic, minimalist sense of “don’t kill people who disagree with you”
).
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Peter_Plato
Guest
I am not clear that the two views are in the same boat. Thor, Zeus and any other god of antiquity were human inventions and clearly that. There has never been an historical claim of any of these gods acting in history. Certainly there have been mythical claims but never were these claims about the here and now. The propagators of these myths consciously propagated them as myths, as stories that did not take place in the human realm as historical events.
The difference is that the Judeo-Christian tradition has consistently made claims about God acting in history. Claims the like of which have never been made about Zeus, Thor or any other god, because these gods were understood, and self-consciously so, to be mythical. Claimed historical events in the Judeo-Christian tradition such as the Exodus narrative, the fall of Jericho, the virgin birth, Jesus’ miracles, the resurrection, etc., were never claimed to have been mythical, but rather historical and, still, have never been falsified. Dismissive gestures have been made that try to relegate these events to the “could not have happened because nature doesn’t work that way” bin; however, that the omniscient Creator God was, indeed, present and active would mean precisely that nature wasn’t left to its own devices when these things occurred. It ought not be presumed a priori that God could not have been active to falsify a claim that he was.
The point here is that Judeo-Christian tradition has made a series of falsifiable claims about events in history. Claims that were not demonstrated to have been false when they occurred and have not been since.
The British radio show Unbelievable? had an interesting guest on the most recent program. His name is J. Warner Wallace who worked for a number of years as a cold case homicide detective in California. He applies principles used to investigate cold case homicides to assess Christian claims specifically regarding the Gospels.
The link to the show is here:
media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/b412b339-0f75-45cc-aedf-485ea0153a1c.mp3
Mr. Wallace also has a web site to explore and share his findings regarding the evidential claims of the Gospels.
coldcasechristianity.com/
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tonyrey
Guest
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Bahman
Guest
If the point 2 is correct and the emergence of evil was essential then why devil will be punished at the end?
By access I meant they could read our mind and seduce us in different situation. This is a power that is not granted to us.
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grannymh
Guest
Psalm 22, verse 1 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,”
Psalm 22, verse 23 and following. “I will proclaim your name to my brethren, in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.”
Psalm 22, verse 25 and following. “For he has not spurned nor disdained the wretched man in his misery,”
Psalm 22, verse 27. “The lowly shall eat their fill;”
Psalm 22, verse 28. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; All the families of the nations shall bow down before him.”
and finally, Psalm 22, verse 32. “that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born the justice he has shown.”
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Abu
Guest
The “Enlightenment” ushered in a new world religion, as recognised by Pope Paul VI in closing the Second Vatican Council: “At the Council, the religion of God made man” had encountered “the religion of man aspiring to be God” in its deepest roots and in many of its practical objectives a Christian heresy."
“When wrenched from their Christian context and raised to the status of absolutes, the notions to which the children of the Enlightenment give priority, such as liberty and equality, no matter how good in themselves, can receive a quite different significance and even become appallingly destructive….”
[Philip Trower, *The Catholic Church And The Counter-Faith, Family Publications, Oxford, 2006, p 18-21].
From Dr Benjamin Wiker (Ten Books Every Conservative Must Read).
Thomas Hobbes was the first modern thinker to systematically attack the notion that there is any natural moral order. He argued that the words “good” and “evil” are merely descriptions of our own individual likes and dislikes – he was thus the father of modern relativism.
Hobbes felt that the idea of moral truths meant that they would be fought for and so were the cause of all war. In such a relativistic world tyranny he thought that would be required to keep the peace and so is the father of modern absolutism and modern liberalism in politics. As Philip Trower has written: “After Descartes had philosophically shut men up inside their minds, the English philosopher John Locke redecorated the prison’s interior, the Scott David Hume locked the door and the Prussian Immanuel Kant through away the key.” (The Catholic Church And The Counter-Faith, Family Publications, Oxford, 2006, p 73).
tothesource.org/10_6_2010/10_6_2010.htm
Jean-Jacques Rousseau favored a small and manageable state and theorized that the never-ending task of large states would be attempts to implement the “general will” of the populace and prevent factions as much as possible. This has resulted in a strong movement among Western European nations toward the “welfare state.” Even many members of European “conservative” political parties would not favor the abolition of some entitlements that U.S. libertarians would consider socialistic.
A good place to start getting rid of prejudices is getting to know that God exists from pure reason, apart from knowing the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
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