Why would God include carnivory, parasitism, and disease in creation?

[Gaber]

It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there is an afterlife.

Do you genuinely believe that it’s wishful thinking to suppose that our consciousness ends irrevocably at death?

Don’t get from the formatting who said this. But it is crucial to distinguish between consiousness as such and awareness as its individuation by identifying with a locus, or awarenes. Some use those terms in reverse, but in any case it is useful and necessary to make the distinction.

That has no bearing on whether there is an afterlife.

OK.

To explain mental activity in terms of cerebral activity amounts to discarding the mind.
There is no evidence whatsoever that all reality is “natural” - nor is it even clear what that term includes.

Actually, as useful as it may be to employ the mind for 3D navigation, most folks don’t do that very well. We are even less successful in internal navigation, as a rule. But discarding the mind–as the be all and end all of being human, without annihilating it, is a great accomplishment and very useful in begining a spiritual life of any consequence.

The use of the catch-cry “complexity” fails to explain anything.

Yes, which p[uts it in exactly the same catagory as “design.”

Emotional reactions (especially at evangelistic mass meetings of believers and non-believers alike) prove nothing - except credulity.This is so.
.

Corruptio optima pessima. There is nothing more irrational than the belief that rational beings are magically derived from purposeless, unthinking particles of dust…

Yes, but it was neither magic nor design.

Provided there is little risk of detection unpleasant consequences don’t matter when one is convinced there is no eternal paradise - or inferno…

“It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there (might be consequences or what those might be.)”

It certainly would! The law of the jungle would have prevailed in every aspect of life…

Kind of like what we have now in so many instances? Same premise–humanity–same conclusion–what we have now.

You are assume reason is “natural”, provide no explanation of ethical intuition and exaggerate the significance of empathy which has miserably failed to prevent the appalling bloodstained history of mankind with its countless atrocities.
To suppose that our morality comes from empathy is folly.

Rason is learned, so is morality, despite the presence of potential, it is not “natural” else we would all behave with the same moral sense. Do we?

Avowed non-believers cherry-pick **all **the moral rules they choose to obey.

“It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals”…arrive at theor morality.

A distortion of Christian belief which infringes the forum rule of respect - like your other statements. You ignore the fact that Jesus chose of His own free will to be tortured and executed rather than descend to the level of His enemies and be caught up in the vortex of evil and violence.

Perhaps as great a fabrication as Sair’s might be in this instance. Do you know the Mind of Jesus/God and speak for Him, or are you speculating from your beleifs? And please don’t say they are the same thing, ok?

Non-believers get a free pass for all their decisions because they recognise no authority superior to themselves - and often reject religion because they find it an obstacle to the satisfaction of their desires - as you have admitted…

That’s just balderdash. “It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there is…” morality and what or how that is constituted…

 

[tonyrey]

It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there is an afterlife.

Do you genuinely believe that it’s wishful thinking to suppose that our consciousness ends irrevocably at death?
Don’t get from the formatting who said this.

The person to whom my post is addressed is clearly stated. Anyone who has been following the discussion attentively is well aware of who said what.

But it is crucial to distinguish between consiousness as such and awareness as its individuation by identifying with a locus, or awarenes. Some use those terms in reverse, but in any case it is useful and necessary to make the distinction.

I don’t understand what you mean.

To explain mental activity in terms of cerebral activity amounts to discarding the mind.
There is no evidence whatsoever that all reality is “natural” - nor is it even clear what that term includes.

Actually, as useful as it may be to employ the mind for 3D navigation, most folks don’t do that very well. We are even less successful in internal navigation, as a rule. But discarding the mind–as the be all and end all of being human, without annihilating it, is a great accomplishment and very useful in begining a spiritual life of any consequence.

A spiritual life without the mind is meaningless. You have not supplied evidence that all reality is “natural” - nor.explained what “natural” includes.

The use of the catch-cry “complexity” fails to explain anything.

Yes, which p[uts it in exactly the same catagory as “design.”

False. Complexity is vague whereas design has a precise meaning we know from our own personal experience.

Corruptio optima pessima. There is nothing more irrational than the belief that rational beings are magically derived from purposeless, unthinking particles of dust…

Yes, but it was neither magic nor design.
That assertion needs to be substantiated.

Provided there is little risk of detection unpleasant consequences don’t matter when one is convinced there is no eternal paradise - or inferno…

“It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there (might be consequences or what those might be.)”
This is a statement of fact which does not refer to specific individuals.

It certainly would! The law of the jungle would have prevailed in every aspect of life…

Kind of like what we have now in so many instances? Same premise–humanity–same conclusion–what we have now.
“so many” is** not** the same as “every”.

You are assume reason is “natural”, provide no explanation of ethical intuition and exaggerate the significance of empathy which has miserably failed to prevent the appalling bloodstained history of mankind with its countless atrocities.
To suppose that our morality comes from empathy is folly.

Rason is learned, so is morality, despite the presence of potential, it is not “natural” else we would all behave with the same moral sense. Do we?
The capacity for reason and moral distinctions is not learned.

Avowed non-believers cherry-pick all the moral rules they choose to obey.

“It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals”…arrive at theor morality.
This is a statement of fact: non-believers have no source of moral authority.

A distortion of Christian belief which infringes the forum rule of respect - like your other statements. You ignore the fact that Jesus chose of His own free will to be tortured and executed rather than descend to the level of His enemies and be caught up in the vortex of evil and violence.

Perhaps as great a fabrication as Sair’s might be in this instance. Do you know the Mind of Jesus/God and speak for Him, or are you speculating from your beleifs? And please don’t say they are the same thing, ok?
Your questions constitute an argumentum ad hominem. What I believe or know is irrelevant.

It is clear from the Gospels that Jesus chose of His own free will to be tortured and executed rather than descend to the level of His enemies and be caught up in the vortex of evil and violence.

Non-believers get a free pass for all their decisions because they recognise no authority superior to themselves - and often reject religion because they find it an obstacle to the satisfaction of their desires - as you have admitted…

That’s just balderdash. “It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there is…” morality and what or how that is constituted…

You are unaware of a previous post from the person I am addressing.

[/QUOTE]

 

[punkforchrist]

Serious:

I did not stipulate that there are non human laws. We have to be careful about the usage of the word “law”. The phrase: “laws of nature” are not really “laws”. And the so call “natural law” which is inscribed on the human heart is just a crock of bad-smelling fertilizer.

Just so I understand you, are there objective laws?

They most certainly do. A moral system is simply a collection of the written and unwritten rules which describe a socially acceptable behavior within a specific society at a specific point of time.

So how are they objective? Maybe I misunderstand you?

 

[punkforchrist]

Gaber:

You are not putting that “syllogism” forth as an actual or usable argument, are you? Or maybe I underestimate your sense of humor. I don’t know which to think. Sorry.

I was actually just explaining what the argument is, but yes, I do think it’s a serious argument. Do you disagree with either or both of the premises?

 

[punkforchrist]

Sair:

Many Muslim theists claim their lawgiver tells them to kill apostates - those who learn that their god is a fiction - and also women who dare to act like adult human beings by exercising even the slightest autonomy - such as wearing something other than a sack-like covering from head to toe, go out of their house without a chaperone, drive a car and so forth. Muslim theists claim Allah as their moral lawgiver, using the exact same logic as you outline above. How can you possibly know that yours is the ‘correct’ moral lawgiver, and that the Muslims are mistaken, when you have exactly the same amount and kind of evidence upon which to make such claims?

The fact that there are disagreements about what exactly the objective moral law entails does not in any way undermine the fact that there is an objective moral law, whatever that happens to be. Imagine a parallel argument that points out the disagreements among quantum physicists about whether fluctuations are spontaneous or fully deterministic. Does this undermine there being an objective truth about quantum fluctuations? Surely not.

Of course, I do think there are good reasons to prefer the Christian view of morality as opposed to this particular Islamic interpretation of ethics. However, that’s beyond the purview of the argument.

 

[Serious]

Just so I understand you, are there objective laws?

Of course.

So how are they objective? Maybe I misunderstand you?

Objective means that they exist indepently from personal opinion. As such the moral systems exist objectively, but they are subject to change. They are not absolute. Absolute would mean that they are not subject to change.

 

[Sair]

The fact that there are disagreements about what exactly the objective moral law entails does not in any way undermine the fact that there is an objective moral law, whatever that happens to be. Imagine a parallel argument that points out the disagreements among quantum physicists about whether fluctuations are spontaneous or fully deterministic. Does this undermine there being an objective truth about quantum fluctuations? Surely not.

A key difference is that quantum physicists generally don’t go around killing each other for such disagreements, nor do they seek to impose universal rules of conduct based upon the nature of quantum mechanics - they are genuinely seeking an explanation for their empirical observations and mathematical calculations. Scientists are generally also prepared to abandon explanations that are shown to be erroneous, unlike many religious thinkers and moralisers.

If there is an objective moral law, it is unlikely to have come from a supernatural entity. It is far more probable that the standards of human behaviour are embedded in our very nature as social and (sometimes) rational animals - we survive and thrive by living in communities, and reason shows us that we must live harmoniously with each other in order for these goals to be achievable. Within that context, moral norms adapt and evolve, as we find different and sometimes better ways of interacting with each other. As Serious pointed out, even if there is a moral law, as such, that could be called objective in the sense that it is independent of any individual opinion, this does not make it eternal or absolute.

 

[Sair]

It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there is an afterlife.

There are not that many reasons, when you get down to brass tacks. Most people are raised to believe in continuation of consciousness in some form after death, and this is a belief that most people find agreeable - so agreeable that it is very difficult to abandon, especially when faced with the inevitability of death.

That has no bearing on whether there is an afterlife.

Of course not - that was not my point. I was attempting to refute your claim that it is wishful thinking to suppose death is the final end for us, by pointing out that so many people apparently prefer to think it’s not.

To explain mental activity in terms of cerebral activity amounts to discarding the mind.

No, it doesn’t. It’s just a different way of examining and understanding what our minds actually are. It’s quite unnecessary to suppose they are independent entities that inhabit and use our bodies. It’s just that dualistic thinking is so pervasive in human culture that it’s hard to let go of it, even in the face of stark empirical realities such as the observed correspondence between brain activity and mental states.

There is no evidence whatsoever that all reality is “natural” - nor is it even clear what that term includes.

Thus far it includes everything that has detectable effects in the world we observe. By that light, there can be no evidence for non-natural entities, even if they exist. The corollary to this is that if gods or souls were detectable, they would fall under the auspices of ‘natural’ reality anyway. You see where this is heading - for a philosophical naturalist, ‘real’ and ‘natural’ are virtually synonymous.

The use of the catch-cry “complexity” fails to explain anything.

Complexity is not an explanation in itself, no - but it does provide the basis upon which interesting things can happen, the potential for interactions between parts that have wider effects at the macro level. As Daniel Dennett puts it in Freedom Evolves, “a whole can be more free than its parts.”

Emotional reactions prove nothing - except credulity.

Quite so. And it’s worth pointing out that another of Harris’s points, echoed by many of the speakers during the convention, is that the search for truth and reality is not a search for comfort; just because we dislike a particular conclusion, that doesn’t make it any less likely to be the truth.

There is nothing more irrational than the belief that rational beings are magically derived from purposeless, unthinking particles of dust…

By whose standards of rationality? What evidence do you have for the participation of supernatural entities in evolution?

Provided there is little risk of detection unpleasant consequences don’t matter when one is convinced there is no eternal paradise - or inferno…

Depends upon whether the consequences are unpleasant to onesself, which they quite often are - consider the encroachment of guilt and the stress of concealment just for starters. You are also steadfastly refusing to see the converse of the problem - that belief in an afterlife necessarily leads to a devaluation of this life, even if it doesn’t look that way from the inside. Inevitably, this belief allows people to see their physical existence as second-best, and this affects all their actions and attitudes.

It certainly would! The law of the jungle would have prevailed in every aspect of life…

Because, of course, all the violence that happened in religious societies was an abberation, not the result of irrational beliefs

 

[Sair]

You are assume reason is “natural”, provide no explanation of ethical intuition and exaggerate the significance of empathy which has miserably failed to prevent the appalling bloodstained history of mankind with its countless atrocities.

The potential for reason is natural. Not every person exercises it, and even those who do, do so inconsistently. Ethical intuition is part of our natural capacity for reason - we instinctively recognise unfairness, for example, and generally consider it worse to actively cause harm than merely to allow harm to happen. Empathy is an absolutely essential aspect of any social animal’s make-up. The ability to recognise onesself in another is the very beginning of morality. You are still denying the fact that most of the “bloodstained history of mankind” was fuelled by irrational beliefs, including religious ones, that eroded empathy by demonising the other - whether the other was of a different race, different gender, different religion, or different species.

To suppose that our morality comes from empathy is folly.

To suppose that it comes from an undemonstrable supernatural source is ridiculous.

Avowed non-believers cherry-pick **all **the moral rules they choose to obey.

Cherry-pick or rationally select? Funnily enough, the fact that I don’t identify myself as a Christian means that it doesn’t matter that I don’t follow every precept of Christian teaching.

A distortion of Christian belief which infringes the forum rule of respect - like your other statements.

Disagreement doesn’t equal disrespect. Even if it did, it’s about time the cultural aura of respect that surrounds even the most absurd and destructive religious beliefs was broken down. What you call a distortion is merely a different way of considering the same elements of the Christian story - one that makes the perverseness of the idea far more apparent than it seemed when I was growing up within the culture of Catholicism.

You ignore the fact that Jesus chose of His own free will to be tortured and executed rather than descend to the level of His enemies and be caught up in the vortex of evil and violence.

And that’s why he is said to have prayed, “Not my will, Father, but thine.” Free will, indeed…

Non-believers get a free pass for all their decisions because they recognise no authority superior to themselves - and often reject religion because they find it an obstacle to the satisfaction of their desires - as you have admitted…

An obstacle to a lot more than the satisfaction of desires - to a proper understanding of reality, to the exercise of rational thought, and to the achievement of genuine happiness and community. No, non-believers don’t get any such free pass - we are still accountable to our fellow beings, who will swiftly inform us when we cross the line. It’s fair to say that I don’t recognise a higher moral authority than myself - but that is in the governance of my own actions only. Every person must be their own autonomous moral authority, exercising their own judgement based upon not just their own needs and desires, but the needs and desires of every other being affected by their actions. As I’ve said many times before, morality is about achieving balance between our own interests and those of others.

 

[Gaber]

T~You are assume reason is “natural”, provide no explanation of ethical intuition and exaggerate the significance of empathy which has miserably failed to prevent the appalling bloodstained history of mankind with its countless atrocities.

S~The potential for reason is natural. Not every person exercises it, and even those who do, do so inconsistently. Ethical intuition is part of our natural capacity for reason - we instinctively recognise unfairness, for example, and generally consider it worse to actively cause harm than merely to allow harm to happen. Empathy is an absolutely essential aspect of any social animal’s make-up. The ability to recognise onesself in another is the very beginning of morality. You are still denying the fact that most of the “bloodstained history of mankind” was fuelled by irrational beliefs, including religious ones, that eroded empathy by demonising the other - whether the other was of a different race, different gender, different religion, or different species.

This is very well stated. T, what’s the difference between a feral child and Shakespear? Training and exploration of potential You appear to assume a static state and distribute it over all of us, similarly to your adamantine insistance on “design.”

T~To suppose that our morality comes from empathy is folly.

S~To suppose that it comes from an undemonstrable supernatural source is ridiculous.

Morality comjes a) from the sense of survival and b) from the maturation of the recgnition of the “other” as equal to self. In the case of religios who claim, but don’t always practice love, it is rationlaized onto a set of precepts given by those who know where they come from in maturity. As Gandhi said: "I like your Chirst. I do not like your Christians; they are so unlike your Christ.

T~Avowed non-believers cherry-pick all the moral rules they choose to obey.

S~Cherry-pick or rationally select? Funnily enough, the fact that I don’t identify myself as a Christian means that it doesn’t matter that I don’t follow every precept of Christian teaching.

It is nonsense to lump all of non-Christian humanity from the ascent of Man to the future as “cherry pickers, T.”

T~A distortion of Christian belief which infringes the forum rule of respect - like your other statements.

.

S~Disagreement doesn’t equal disrespect. Even if it did, it’s about time the cultural aura of respect that surrounds even the most absurd and destructive religious beliefs was broken down. What you call a distortion is merely a different way of considering the same elements of the Christian story - one that makes the perverseness of the idea far more apparent than it seemed when I was growing up within the culture of Catholicism.

T, that is like a non-white screaming “racism” when rightly accused of a transgression. It is not an issue of disrespect, but of your judging someone by taking your own choice of paradigm as absolute truth. Sorry, doesn’t wash as an argument, and is disrespectful to yourselawell as us.

T~You ignore the fact that Jesus chose of His own free will to be tortured and executed rather than descend to the level of His enemies and be caught up in the vortex of evil and violence.

S~And that’s why he is said to have prayed, “Not my will, Father, but thine.” Free will, indeed…

And mistaken in interpretation, btw.

T~Non-believers get a free pass for all their decisions because they recognise no authority superior to themselves - and often reject religion because they find it an obstacle to the satisfaction of their desires - as you have admitted…

S~An obstacle to a lot more than the satisfaction of desires - to a proper understanding of reality, to the exercise of rational thought, and to the achievement of genuine happiness and community. No, non-believers don’t get any such free pass - we are still accountable to our fellow beings, who will swiftly inform us when we cross the line. It’s fair to say that I don’t recognise a higher moral authority than myself - but that is in the governance of my own actions only. Every person must be their own autonomous moral authority, exercising their own judgement based upon not just their own needs and desires, but the needs and desires of every other being affected by their actions. As I’ve said many times before, morality is about achieving balance between our own interests and those of others.

This nonsense of non believers being immoral or unethical per se is so specious as to be embarassing to anyone who states it, but since such appear to be innured to that, we have to be embarrased for them, If anything, the ethics and morality of a non believer who has developed those and internalized them is stronger than that of an imposed moraliity. Survival and well being are at stake, and uless one is a sociopath to some degree, that developpment is a natural outcome to one extent or another. I would wager to say, in fact, that those who are believers most naturally develop their morals by imitation and trial and error befor doing that from precepts, which are rationalized or reasonable distilations from the observation of results of actions.Every religion and philosopy has them and they amount to about the same thing because they all pertain to the human conditon.

 

[punkforchrist]

Serious:

Objective means that they exist indepently from personal opinion. As such the moral systems exist objectively, but they are subject to change. They are not absolute. Absolute would mean that they are not subject to change.

Usually people imply that moral obligations are absolute when they call them objective. When we say that it is objectively wrong to torture children for fun, we don’t open the possibility that it will become morally neutral or good.

 

[punkforchrist]

Sair:

A key difference is that quantum physicists generally don’t go around killing each other for such disagreements, nor do they seek to impose universal rules of conduct based upon the nature of quantum mechanics - they are genuinely seeking an explanation for their empirical observations and mathematical calculations. Scientists are generally also prepared to abandon explanations that are shown to be erroneous, unlike many religious thinkers and moralisers.

This is a separate argument from the one you made earlier. In any case, the bad behavior of some is no reason to dismiss their metaphysical conclusions.

If there is an objective moral law, it is unlikely to have come from a supernatural entity. It is far more probable that the standards of human behaviour are embedded in our very nature as social and (sometimes) rational animals - we survive and thrive by living in communities, and reason shows us that we must live harmoniously with each other in order for these goals to be achievable. Within that context, moral norms adapt and evolve, as we find different and sometimes better ways of interacting with each other. As Serious pointed out, even if there is a moral law, as such, that could be called objective in the sense that it is independent of any individual opinion, this does not make it eternal or absolute.

This is a very important point, so I’ll ask you the same question I asked Serious: is it possible for “it is wrong to torture children for fun” to become false?

 

[tonyrey]

It is a mistake to generalise about the reasons why specific individuals believe or disbelieve that there is an afterlife.

1. In our secular society more and more people are rejecting that belief without any difficulty whatsoever.
2. It is far from difficult to abandon when you are brought up to believe in hell.

To explain mental activity in terms of cerebral activity amounts to discarding the mind.

No, it doesn’t. It’s just a different way of examining and understanding what our minds actually are. It’s quite unnecessary to suppose they are independent entities that inhabit and use our bodies. It’s just that dualistic thinking is so pervasive in human culture that it’s hard to let go of it, even in the face of stark empirical realities such as the observed correspondence between brain activity and mental states.

If thoughts are not electrical impulses what are they?

There is no evidence whatsoever that all reality is “natural” - nor is it even clear what that term includes.

Thus far it includes everything that has detectable effects in the world we observe. By that light, there can be no evidence for non-natural entities, even if they exist. The corollary to this is that if gods or souls were detectable, they would fall under the auspices of ‘natural’ reality anyway. You see where this is heading - for a philosophical naturalist, ‘real’ and ‘natural’ are virtually synonymous.

Are your beliefs, values, goals and decisions detectable?

The use of the catch-cry “complexity” fails to explain anything

. Complexity is not an explanation in itself, no - but it does provide the basis upon which interesting things can happen, the potential for interactions between parts that have wider effects at the macro level. As Daniel Dennett puts it in Freedom Evolves, “a whole can be more free than its parts.”

An assertion which requires justification.

Emotional reactions prove nothing - except credulity.

Quite so. And it’s worth pointing out that another of Harris’s points, echoed by many of the speakers during the convention, is that the search for truth and reality is not a search for comfort; just because we dislike a particular conclusion, that doesn’t make it any less likely to be the truth.

How does he define truth?

There is nothing more irrational than the belief that rational beings are magically derived from purposeless, unthinking particles of dust…

By whose standards of rationality? What evidence do you have for the participation of supernatural entities in evolution?

Do you believe all your mental activity has natural causes?

Provided there is little risk of detection unpleasant consequences don’t matter when one is convinced there is no eternal paradise - or inferno…

Depends upon whether the consequences are unpleasant to onesself, which they quite often are - consider the encroachment of guilt and the stress of concealment just for starters.

Countless people have succeeded in rejecting morality and guilt as mere human conventions.

You are also steadfastly refusing to see the converse of the problem - that belief in an afterlife necessarily leads to a devaluation of this life, even if it doesn’t look that way from the inside. Inevitably, this belief allows people to see their physical existence as second-best, and this affects all their actions and attitudes.

On the contrary. With an afterlife this life takes on far more value and significance because it is a rational prelude rather than an irrational finale. It has eternal consequences rather than being a meaningless flash in the pan which leads to precisely nothing.

It certainly would! The law of the jungle

would have prevailed in every aspect of life… Because, of course, all the violence that happened in religious societies was an abberation, not the result of irrational beliefs

Corruptio optima pessima.

 

[Serious]

Usually people imply that moral obligations are absolute when they call them objective.

I cannot help if people use words imprecisely. To mix up “absolute” and “objective” is a very common mistake. And no matter hoe many times it is explained, someone will make this mistake, over and over again.

When we say that it is objectively wrong to torture children for fun, we don’t open the possibility that it will become morally neutral or good.

I agree with the idea that torturing anyone for fun is a horrible thing. But I can only speak of my personal opinion. It is possible to imagine a society where the members (they do not have to be human “people”) do not care about what we call pain, because they have a different wiring in their brain. The point is that “absolute” means in any circumstances, for everone, in every time.

The truth is that when people say that action “X” is moral, then they really say that they agree with that action. When the say that action “Y” is immoral, they merely say that they disagree with that action.

 

[tonyrey]

You are assume reason is “natural”, provide no explanation of ethical intuition and exaggerate the significance of empathy which has miserably failed to prevent the appalling bloodstained history of mankind with its countless atrocities.

Please justify the assumption that the potential for reason is natural.

Ethical intuition is part of our natural capacity for reason - we instinctively recognise unfairness, for example, and generally consider it worse to actively cause harm than merely to allow harm to happen.

Then you believe unfairness is not merely a human opinion?

Empathy is an absolutely essential aspect of any social animal’s make-up. The ability to recognise oneself in another is the very beginning of morality.

Empathy does not necessarily entail belief in equality.

You are still denying the fact that most of the “bloodstained history of mankind” was fuelled by irrational beliefs, including religious ones, that eroded empathy by demonising the other - whether the other was of a different race, different gender, different religion, or different species.

Most of the bloodstained history of mankind has been caused by selfishness, greed and the lust for power and pleasure.

To suppose that our morality comes from empathy is folly.

To suppose that it comes from an undemonstrable supernatural source is ridiculous.

To suppose that persons come from the dust under their feet is ridiculous.

Avowed non-believers cherry-pick all the moral rules they choose to obey.

Cherry-pick or rationally select? Funnily enough, the fact that I don’t identify myself as a Christian means that it doesn’t matter that I don’t follow every precept of Christian teaching.

On what do you base rationality?

A distortion of Christian belief which infringes the forum rule of respect - like your other statements.

Disagreement doesn’t equal disrespect. Even if it did, it’s about time the cultural aura of respect that surrounds even the most absurd and destructive religious beliefs was broken down. What you call a distortion is merely a different way of considering the same elements of the Christian story - one that makes the perverseness of the idea far more apparent than it seemed when I was growing up within the culture of Catholicism.

Your exact words:

And to imagine that the God of Classical Theism, as portrayed in the Bible, is the great law-giver to whom we turn for guidance, is quite simply absurd. Any human who sought to appease their own anger at a supposed offence by submitting their own offspring for slaughter would rightly be considered a monster.

You are dogmatically foisting your own distorted interpretation of the Redemption on Christians as if it is an expression of diabolical injustice rather than divine love. If that isn’t disrespectful I don’t know what is. You have a right to express your opinions but not to misrepresent the God of the Bible sarcastically as a monster who is “the great law-giver to whom we turn for guidance”.

You ignore the fact that Jesus chose of His own free will to be tortured and executed rather than descend to the level of His enemies and be caught up in the vortex of evil and violence.

And that’s why he is said to have prayed, “Not my will, Father, but thine.” Free will, indeed…

Your sarcasm is again based on your failure to distinguish obedience from compulsion.
The very fact that Jesus refers to His own will makes this evident to any unprejudiced person without an axe to grind.

Non-believers get a free pass for all their decisions because they recognise no authority superior to themselves - and often reject religion because they find it an obstacle to the satisfaction of their desires - as you have admitted…

An obstacle to a lot more than the satisfaction of desires - to a proper understanding of reality, to the exercise of rational thought, and to the achievement of genuine happiness and community.

Your plaudits of your own ideology are worthless unless they are substantiated.

No, non-believers don’t get any such free pass - we are still accountable to our fellow beings, who will swiftly inform us when we cross the line.

You are overlooking all the skeletons in the cupboards…

It’s fair to say that I don’t recognise a higher moral authority than myself - but that is in the governance of my own actions only. Every person must be their own autonomous moral authority, exercising their own judgement based upon not just their own needs and desires, but the needs and desires of every other being affected by their actions. As I’ve said many times before, morality is about achieving balance between our own interests and those of others.

The balance seems to be in your favour if we are to judge by your avowed preference for the life of an animal **you **know rather than the life of a person you don’t know…

 

[Sair]

1. In our secular society more and more people are rejecting that belief without any difficulty whatsoever.

Are they? Or are they just rejecting the harder aspects of religious belief, and clinging to the comforting ones?

1. It is far from difficult to abandon when you are brought up to believe in hell.

Hell that is imposed for merely thinking for onesself, apparently - rather than causing any actual harm.

If thoughts are not electrical impulses what are they?

Indeed.

Are your beliefs, values, goals and decisions detectable?

Of course they are. They have effects in the real world, upon our behaviour and choices.

How does he define truth?

The same way any thinking person defines truth - as that which is actually the case in reality.

Do you believe all your mental activity has natural causes?

Yes.

Countless people have succeeded in rejecting morality and guilt as mere human conventions.

Just as countless people have succeeded in using religious morality for immoral ends.

On the contrary. With an afterlife this life takes on far more value and significance because it is a rational prelude rather than an irrational finale. It has eternal consequences rather than being a meaningless flash in the pan which leads to precisely nothing.

Rational prelude? Why is it rational to believe in something that is completely undemonstrable? Why does this life have to “lead to” anything in order to be significant? This life has whatever meaning we give it, as conscious beings. If that means wasting our lives contemplating and preparing for an afterlife that almost certainly doesn’t exist, that is an choice for individual people to make, however lamentable.

Corruptio optima pessima.

Then the “best” is human morality, not religious fairytales - the latter are the corrupting influence.

 

[tonyrey]

1. In our secular society more and more people are rejecting that belief without any difficulty whatsoever.

Not according to the statistics in countries like Sweden and the UK.

1. It is far from difficult to abandon when you are brought up to believe in hell.

Hell that is imposed for merely thinking for onesself, apparently - rather than causing any actual harm.

False.

If thoughts are not electrical impulses what are they?

Indeed.

What are thoughts?

Are your beliefs, values, goals and decisions detectable?

Of course they are. They have effects in the real world, upon our behaviour and choices.

Observing effects is different from detecting causes.

How does he define truth?

The same way any thinking person defines truth - as that which is actually the case in reality.

Interpretations of reality differ. Why do you regard him as an authority?

Do you believe all your mental activity has natural causes?

Yes.

Then you have no control over - and are not responsible for - your decisions and conclusions.

Countless people have succeeded in rejecting morality and guilt as mere human conventions.

Just as countless people have succeeded in using religious morality for immoral ends.

Irrelevant. The issue is whether people without a religion are bothered about guilt.

On the contrary. With an afterlife this life takes on far more value and significance because it is a rational prelude rather than an irrational finale. It has eternal consequences rather than being a meaningless flash in the pan which leads to precisely nothing.

Rational prelude? Why is it rational to believe in something that is completely undemonstrable?

It is irrational to believe everything is material when realities like truth, integrity, evil, freedom, intentions, decisions and purposes cannot be observed with the senses.

Why does this life have to “lead to” anything in order to be significant?

A life without consequences is inconsequential.

This life has whatever meaning we give it, as conscious beings.

Which amounts to an arbitrary decision. The criminal’s view is as valid as the philanthropist’s.

If that means wasting our lives contemplating and preparing for an afterlife that almost certainly doesn’t exist, that is an choice for individual people to make, however lamentable.

How do you ascertain the improbability of an afterlife? Do you have privileged insight into the nature of the mind?

Corruptio optima pessima.

Then the “best” is human morality, not religious fairytales - the latter are the corrupting influence.

Only according to Dawkins and his disciples… Moral decadence stems directly from the decision that life has whatever meaning we give it - which is a superb recipe for criminality.

 

[punkforchrist]

Serious:

I cannot help if people use words imprecisely. To mix up “absolute” and “objective” is a very common mistake. And no matter hoe many times it is explained, someone will make this mistake, over and over again.

I suppose there is some imprecision there, so let’s qualify “objective” with “absolute” in the moral argument.

I agree with the idea that torturing anyone for fun is a horrible thing. But I can only speak of my personal opinion. It is possible to imagine a society where the members (they do not have to be human “people”) do not care about what we call pain, because they have a different wiring in their brain. The point is that “absolute” means in any circumstances, for everone, in every time.

The truth is that when people say that action “X” is moral, then they really say that they agree with that action. When the say that action “Y” is immoral, they merely say that they disagree with that action.

This is where we differ. I agree with Michael Ruse (a naturalist philosopher) in that the person who says it’s okay to torture children for fun is just as wrong as the one who says 2+2=5. The fact that people have different opinions about moral obligations doesn’t undermine their objective and absolute nature anymore than the differing opinions of physicists undermines an absolute physical reality.

Also, if these hypothetical persons have a different wiring in their brains, then is it really torture? So, how would that apply?

 

[Hypnotoad]

What creation was and what it is now are not the same thing. Judging God’s designs based on the world we have now, would be counterproductive. People say God cannot be considered omnibenevolent unless He created a world without pain and suffering. My answer to this would be: Yes, and that God did create such a world when He made His Edenistic world. Some will then say: “but science indicates that x-amount of billions of years ago, before man, that animals and etc were in pain and blah blah blah”; and my response to this is of course science shows that because that is the science of our world not the Edenistic world. You cannot apply the history of this world to the one before it. In fact one could theorize that we were taken from the perfect world (kicked out of Eden) and given a world which fit our fallen natures (the world we have today). Or Eden could have completely degenerated into the world we have today. Either way Eden was perfect, there was no death, and no suffering. The conclusion: God was and is omnibenevolent.

 

[Poseidon]

What creation was and what it is now are not the same thing. Judging God’s designs based on the world we have now, would be counterproductive. People say God cannot be considered omnibenevolent unless He created a world without pain and suffering. My answer to this would be: Yes, and that God did create such a world when He made His Edenistic world. Some will then say: “but science indicates that x-amount of billions of years ago, before man, that animals and etc were in pain and blah blah blah”; and my response to this is of course science shows that because that is the science of our world not the Edenistic world. You cannot apply the history of this world to the one before it. In fact one could theorize that we were taken from the perfect world (kicked out of Eden) and given a world which fit our fallen natures (the world we have today). Or Eden could have completely degenerated into the world we have today. Either way Eden was perfect, there was no death, and no suffering. The conclusion: God was and is omnibenevolent.

You have nothing to show that any of this is even remotely true. It’s just speculation. I can also speculate that there’s a dragon hiding in my closet who disappears when I open the door, or that my parents are actually aliens who raised me to study my behavior, or that I’m actually in a massive computer simulation and no one else actually exists.

You’re saying that the world was somehow different before the Fall. Maybe it was actually a completely different world! My response is this: if humans were transported to this world form another after the Fall, the problem of evil still exists. That means that evil was already on this planet before humans came. If somehow the earth became evil after the Fall, then why is there so much evidence of animals eating each other before humans? Did God just decide to throw a bunch of fossils in the ground to confuse people? “Hey Jesus, I’ve got an idea. This’ll really get 'em!” Or are we just totally mistaken - animals with enormous sharp teeth actually used to eat plants. God just made them really badly adapted to eating plants in case humanity fell, so they could just start eating each other right away without going through all that trouble to evolve.

Sorry, I can’t accept what you’re saying here. It just doesn’t make sense.