The objective moral values gained through grounding morality in the Christian God seems great until you come across a passage in the Bible like Numbers 31. Here, God tells Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites, commanding his soldiers not just to kill every man, but everyone who isn’t a virgin girl.
In modern times, you would struggle to find any believer who thinks God would order murder today, but if you were one of these soldiers, you would not have been so lucky.
On this objective moral standard, as long as God commands it, usually sinful acts become acts of virtue, while acts of good, such as saving a child’s life become acts of sin. This is why objective morality is more terrifying. It is only as good as the thing that you base it on. If you base it on a tyrant, tyranny is now moral, and all of your complaints are wrong by default. The tyrant is always right.
You can create objective moral values by grounding morality in anything: a God, yourself, statements such as “maximising happiness and minimising suffering” etc. From these things it’s possible to measure and arrive at an objective set of values which best meet your goal. But how do you decide which goal is the correct one? Ultimately it’s just your opinion as there has been no scientific discovery of an objective morality that actually exists, making objective morality subjective anyway.
Why is subjective morality so bad in the first place? It is a morality that can be debated, argued, discussed, improved and agreed on. This is frankly much better than having to accept it was once morally virtuous to murder babies.
What has Christian objective morality ever done for us? Throughout history, lessons in morality such as not keeping slaves, and equality between races and genders have been learned thousands of years later than you would have expected if it were actually a good source of moral truth. Rather than light the path forward, the church has changed its opinion repeatedly in reaction to public outcry.
Objective morality is a system easily open to misuse when grounded incorrectly, and has consistently failed to deliver on the objective moral certainty it tries to provide. Can we stop treating it as if it’s superior?
My Brain Is Completely Empty 
It is always interesting to me when people talk about morality as if it is something which can be known in any way other than objective, and as if every notion they have of it does not originate with or otherwise been heavily influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition which they seek to reject. By that, I mean that, no matter how we may romanticize ancient cultures and see them through the lens of our moral sensibilities, if we actually went and saw them, we would largely be shocked and appalled by the absolute lack of them.
I remember recently-ish coming across a scholar’s statement – and, naturally, I did not make an exact note to refer to later, because why would I do something so sensible? – to that very effect. They were examining the morality of those ancient cultures and they simply did not have any of the principles of morality which we take for granted today. Why? Because they came from the God of the Israelites, the Jews, and the Christians.
Left to our own devices, humans do not elevate in what we call “morality.” We descend into depravity. As a species, we tend towards the easiest, most pleasurable, and most selfish of tendencies. Even peoples who have been taught such morality have always fallen in this way whenever they have not held to them. Case in point: take a look at the works of the regimes of godless communists, the hypocritical “Christians” who violate the very same commandments they preach, and all the workings of the modern elite who take delight in preying on their fellow creatures.
Moral relativism is moral nonexistence. It means there is no lasting, trustworthy morality at all, and so anything anyone can do, with all of their worldly power and advantage, is entirely acceptable. Because there is no real “wrong” or “right” for them to be judged by.
Indeed, most conversations with those whose morality is fluid tend to go in the direction of them screaming about, “How dare you judge?!” While discussions with people who believe in absolute morality are more like, “So, how do all of these things fit, let us share perspectives and learn together.” That’s what we do at church, for instance. Or, at least, my church.
Absolute morality is a rock on which we can stand firm and build ourselves and our society. Subjective morality is a morass which drowns individuals, communities, nations, and civilizations.
The real horror of objective morality is not “the tyrant is always right,” it’s, “Oh, no, I am wrong, and I have done something terrible.” That is never easy to deal with, not even for the greatest and most obedient of us, let alone those who are not. But the value of objective morality is that, once we know it, once we understand it, we can then change ourselves to abide by it, and grow stronger for it. Even more, it’s knowing that we have a source of morality, or, rather, of instruction in morality, which we can always trust, even if we do not always understand it at the time.
Take, for instance, when the Israelites entered Canaan and were ordered to wipe out the previous inhabitants. To us, today, killing children is, of course, a terrible thing. It wasn’t to most cultures back then, and God had His eye on the big picture. As was once pointed out to me, when the Israelites failed to obey their orders to kill *all* of the people they were ordered to, they opened the way for their neighbors to corrupt them with idolatry. This led to centuries of atrocious misbehavior, where they, the people of God, did engaged in truly monstrous acts, such as in the worship of Baal, where they would burn offerings on an alter while engaging in orgies. And the babies that resulted from such were then also put on the alter to burn, alive, while they had their orgies. Any way you slice *that,* it must certainly be even worse than simply cutting down a child quick and clean as a soldier following orders.
It was only after the Babylonian captivity that the Jews finally stopped falling into idolatry. And what they did instead was strive to adhere so strongly to the laws they had been given that they built up a bunch of apocryphal laws around it, which they came to hold so sacred that they eventually crucified a certain man who was correcting them.
Basically, objective morality, the absolute morality which we learn about from God, may be difficult to understand at times, and may be hard enough to hurt ourselves against it, and there is no end to those who would eagerly usurp His authority to dominate others… but we prosper by it far better when we hold to it, and we suffer tremendously when we do not, when we make excuses for “relative” morality instead.
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Hi Merlin, I think this is possibly the most I have ever disagreed with you, which is very exciting as we are usually able to find good common ground. There is so much that I want to talk about, but to avoid this response being impossibly long, I’ve had to summarise some areas of debate.
The most important thing to say if you’re going to discredit other cultures as immoral is ‘citation needed’, until you have that, saying that all of these historic cultures were morally depraved is just racism. The idea that other cultures could not work out for themselves commandments like “do not murder” is quite shocking, and demonstrably false as things such as the golden rule appeared in Confucianism, the works of greek philosophy, and Hinduism before or around the same time as we find the commands in the Hebrew bible, long before the judeo-christian influence could ever have reached them.
The second most important thing is providing explanations/apologies for all the awful things that have been done in the name of Christianity, by the church, and by believers. I’m talking about God endorsed genocide in the bible, the crusades, persecution of Catholics and protestants, persecution of those finding scientific truth, the inquisition, injustice towards women, witch hunts, the use of the bible to justify Colonialism and Imperialism, slavery, anti-semitism, persecution of homosexuality, and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals just to name a few. And then following this, an explanation of why despite this, these judeo-christian values have somehow been superior. I think historically, when we look at Christianity, the statement “if we actually went and saw them, we would largely be shocked and appalled” very much applies.
I don’t believe Communist regimes are the most representative examples to illustrate the failings of subjective morality, as they do not ideologically align with the majority of secular regimes for example France, Japan, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Norway and New Zealand. All of these are examples of good secular regimes working, and very much leading the way forward in progress.
I have a quote from the first page in Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis. He lists several remarks that he has heard in public such as ‘That’s my seat, I was there first’, ‘Leave him alone, ‘he isn’t doing any harm’ etc. and then says the following “Now what interests my about all these remarks is that the man who makes them in not merely saying that the other man’s behaviour does not please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: ‘To hell with your standard.’ Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse”
When talking about subjective morality it’s important to know about “the law of human nature” as C.S. Lewis described it. In practical terms, when discussing subjective morality, people treat this standard to exist, which is why it’s not scary if it’s not there. To this extent, subjective morality very much has to be “So, how do all of these things fit, let us share perspectives and learn together.” and I’d argue it’s why the secular systems mentioned above have been so successful.
In my experience, it’s only ever been Christians, not secularists, who have said “How dare you judge?!” My experience is that some Christians think that not having a foundation of the Christian God means I don’t have a right to have an opinion or morality, or that it’s invalid from the start.
“Absolute morality is a rock on which we can stand firm and build ourselves and our society.” – which absolute morality do you choose though? There are lots of them. The choice of which one is down to subjective opinion, making this objective rock subjective morality anyway. I know that you don’t think the Christian God is a tyrant, but if a society were to decide that Mein Kampf is actually the foundation of our objective morality, then it would very much be true that “The tyrant is always right” is the most terrifying thing about it. In this hypothetical society I don’t think you could ever say “once we know it, once we understand it, we can then change ourselves to abide by it, and grow stronger for it” as a strength, this is very much the problem!
A system based on the morality of Mein Kampf which says that its morality is subjective would eventually be able to debate and reason their way to a society that is more beneficial for everyone that’s in it, whereas if they said their morality was objective, that would never be possible, as there would be no room for discussion.
“Any way you slice *that,* it must certainly be even worse than simply cutting down a child quick and clean as a soldier following orders.” – so we should go for the religion that only kills babies over the religion that sacrifices them, how very moral. I think the obvious conclusion is that they’re both immoral.
I have not seen evidence for statements “we prosper by it far better when we hold to it, and we suffer tremendously when we do not” if what I have said hasn’t convinced you, can you provide it? I’m asking because if you’re correct, I want to know, but I can only know and accept it to my satisfaction by seeing the evidence.
I did say I would talk about “Can we trust the morality of the creator” in our other discussion, but I think it’s something we will naturally talk about following this, so I’ve left it out due to trying to maintain the length.
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Heh, yeah, this is one of those topics where, really, one is either in one camp or the other, where one must be right and the other must be wrong. Of course it goes without saying which one I believe. 😉
Firstly, I would hardly call it racist when my statement doesn’t really apply to race. It applies to cultures and traditions of every race, mine included, throughout the history of the world.
For instance, although many cultures have had some injunction against murder, as you mention, somehow those cultures seem to have had a very limited view of what constituted a murder. People of status could murder commoners for any reason, for instance, be they samurai, sultan, or a European nobleman. Warriors were given carte blanche to murder, steal, and rape if they took a city by force. For certain insults or other slights, entire peoples have been put to the sword. The Aztecs, Maya, and Inca practiced human sacrifice galore in their temples. So, yes, while they were not entirely without concepts of honor and integrity, it is still a fact that they did not have the same morality which we take for granted today.
More on that in a moment.
As to your second point, I must make something clear: it is my firm belief that when God says to do something, it is right to obey. Always. Sometimes he may command us with the intent of testing us and stopping us, as he did with Abraham and Isaac. But either way, it is right to obey Him.
Most of what you cite, however, are the works of men, not God. Even if they use His name, it is not His will or His command. It is theirs. And they invariably account to Him for that. To paraphrase Charles Dickens (or at least one animated version of A Christmas Carol), I charge their doings to them, not Him.
As for why “these judeo-christian values have somehow been superior,” name me one other tradition – just *one* in the whole of human history – which has inspired its people to correct their wrongs to be more in line with itself.
It was Christians who ended the slavery they themselves practiced, even at the cost of bloodshed. It was Christians, black and white alike, who stood side by side, marched side by side, and sometimes hung side by side in the fight against Jim Crow. It was Christians who said, “We cannot treat women this way,” and “We cannot just persecute gays like this,” and “We cannot descend into genocide,” and “We have to stop persecuting the people we defeat in war.”
Did the samurai do this? Or the Viking? Or the Spartan? The Hindu? The Muslim? The Roman? The Greek? The Aztec? Oh, sure, some of them went in and corrected the wrongs committed by other cultures, but their own? I cannot think of one.
On a note about both that and “both cultures being immoral,” let me ask: how do you stop a great evil being committed by another culture? Is it remotely possible to do it without immense bloodshed?
The Hindu tradition of burning widows alive on the same pyre as their deceased husbands – or else condemning them to be treated as filth lower than dirt for the rest of their lives – continued for decades despite the British Empire trying to stomp it out. Yeah, those “colonial” and “imperial” people who were supposedly so evil took a stand against burning widows alive. They made it illegal, they executed those who practiced it, and yet it persisted at least until the 1980’s. Did the Hindus stop it themselves? No. That was a bunch of Christian Englishmen who tried doing that.
A Muslim girl was burned to death by her classmates for speaking out against a teacher they liked after he raped her. Muslims are obligated to kill their own family members if they defect from Islam. Heck, to this day, Islam practices slavery, the burying and stoning of women as well as treating them deplorably in everyday life, and the execution of gay people. Do Muslims stand up against that? They stand up when enemy Muslims invade their territory, but they have not corrected the sins of their culture.
But, hey… if morality is entirely subjective, and not at all objective, then, in fact… all of the above, everything you and I have each mentioned, is ultimately perfectly fine. Because, since it’s all relative, nothing can ever just be wrong. Nothing.
And look what that has gotten us.
A society the withers and dies as people sleep around and abort their babies, instead of following the commandment to be chaste outside of marriage and faithful within it.
A society where godless teenagers assault and murder each other at school. Sometimes in shooting sprees, sometimes in racially-motivated assaults (like a white boy who was beaten down by a mob of black boys and girls quite recently), sometimes in yet other ways.
A society where we do not love each other, but hate instead, tearing apart the unity which so many of our forefathers bled together to build.
Yeah, we prosper far better when we hold to the objective morality which does not permit exceptions just because “it’s just sex” or “they’re not real people anyway” or “I am in pain.” You know, all the excuses given when people do what is wrong but screech about, “How dare you judge me?!” Moral relativism at work.
Infinite wisdom requires infinite perspective. (to quote an anime) No matter how smart, advanced, or enlightened we humans may be, we are, and always will be, limited in our perspective. God’s perspective is infinite. That’s why He knows what is moral and what is not. And that is why His word is worth trusting and building our society on, unlike Mein Kampf.
And I believe I just managed to skip over a bunch of points, but this is still basically the core of what I want to say.
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Hi Merlin,
You’re just going to need to cite evidence for this, I give you permission to put links to anything relevant. It’s fine to pick and choose several examples, but ultimately it’s impossible to cover all of history without sources.
The next thing about citing acts of men and not God isn’t very helpful. You have talked about all other cultures doing terrible things, yet have no excuses for the actions of your own. When other cultures do awful things, it’s because their culture is wrong, when Christians do awful things, it’s only the people who are wrong, not the culture. This is so hypocritical.
“name me one other tradition – just *one* in the whole of human history – which has inspired its people to correct their wrongs to be more in line with itself.”
Secular humanism by far has inspired much more in a shorter period of time. It is extremely new, and look at what it’s already done! The improvement of things like LGBTQ+ rights and equality has been extreme. The movement only really started in the late 19th or early 20th century and we only had to wait until 2013 before gay marriage was legalized in my country. Compared to the nearly two thousand years Christianity had, I think it’s far more influential. What at all is inspiring about that?
When comparing Christianity to other cultures, it’s vital to understand that Christianity has been around for far longer than they have. Amongst your examples, the Roman empire probably had the longest amount of time touching around 1300 years, where was Christianity after this amount of time? It had just finished the crusades, so none of these statements would apply.
If you have an all powerful God, then you can definitely prevent evil without bloodshed. There are probably billions of ways that an all powerful God could do this. Also, you don’t have to kill babies to stop these evils, or the children, and you most definitely do not need to tell the soldiers to keep the virgin girls for themselves. I think that’s a bare minimum.
In regard to colonialism, you can’t just cherry pick one example from history as if that’s the only thing that took place. Take a look at the big picture. Mass violence, exploitation and genocide, you don’t get to point to one good thing and that suddenly makes it all ok.
Let’s not forget that Muslims claim to have objective morality as well, and that’s not turning out very well for them as we both agree. Is this really your solution though? You believe it’s a good idea to commit a biblical/colonial style invasion into these Muslim countries to put a stop to these practices?
The idea of everything being ok on subjective morality isn’t well attested for. I wish you hadn’t skipped over the concept of the law of human nature, as it’s vital for understanding how subjective morality works. You can still arrive at a good morality with subjective morality, you just need to have good justifications. In a very real sense, I see Christian morality as subjective too, as I don’t see an objective reason why we should follow that objective standard, only subjective reasons.
I don’t think countries defined by secular laws are suffering due to a lack of objectivity. Examples like France, Japan, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Norway and New Zealand are doing pretty well, these are the big picture examples I recommend you use to assess secular society, not just case reports like a school shooting.
Even if I were to take these claims about secular society at face value (which I very much shouldn’t), that culture is still far superior to the Christianity in the past with the crusades, inquisition, discrimination etc. I certainly know which culture I would prefer to live in, and I’m near certain that you wouldn’t want to go back to those times either.
I don’t really see any difference between examples like “it’s just sex” and the excuses given to the mistakes done by Christianity in the past. None of these phrases really express “how dare you judge me” I feel, they seem to be trying to give excuses or reasons to justify their actions.
“God’s perspective is infinite. That’s why He knows what is moral and what is not. And that is why His word is worth trusting and building our society on, unlike Mein Kampf.”
We finally got there! How can we trust God to be moral? If we were to grant that the universe has a creator, the creator could have died immediately after creation, or only had the power to create one universe, or been a liar, or been a programmer from the true universe etc so how can we know the morality of God is correct?
If you take the quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” then it also follows that anyone with technology advanced enough to create the universe would also be powerful enough to make you believe in their miracles, regardless of how infinite they actually are. Due to this, personal experience is unlikely to be a good verification test.
I would argue that the only way is to use our own judgement, it’s the only tool we have to assess morality.
If a new gospel was discovered today, which was dated to gospel times, but had sections which endorsed slavery and murder, condemned homosexuals, advocated against women’s rights, then I think it would quite rightly not be allowed in the gospel cannon for these reasons. We can judge for ourselves whether or not the book fits in with the idea of a God which is perfectly loving and perfectly good.
I go a step further. I see the passages in the bible like Exodus 21, Numbers 31, Romans 1, 1 Timothy 2 saying all these things, and think, no, this God is obviously not all-loving and all-good.
I don’t disagree with the idea that most people are in one camp or the other. But I very much hope that we can find nuance and common ground here. Often, the truth is not found at any one extreme.
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There are a number of points to address in all this, not least concerning the wild misconstruing of what I said, but first and foremost, I point out: we are demonstrating, right now, the folly of moral relativism. We’re not even making any important decisions, just talking, and we cannot agree.
Millions and billions of people are not just going to be able to agree on what is moral, because we are limited and self-interested. We are a bunch of children with immediate concerns and immediate desires, in dire need of our parent’s guidance. We have a parent who knows all and loves all and sees both the big picture and our smaller pictures. He knows what He’s doing. We may not always understand, we may have occasion to ask questions – this is all right, the truth can take any questioning – and we may have moments where trusting Him seems like madness in the eyes of the world, but He is the only one we *can* trust.
You mention excuses. And you mention that I do not have excuses for the sins committed by my own culture. This is because I do not make excuses for them. It would seem I did not make this point clearly enough.
To restate:
You asked – or, rather, demanded an accounting – about various bad things done by people who were invoking the name of God. I made the distinction that the will of God is not the same as the will of anyone who invokes His name. Therefore, all of those things were not actually His will, and are not supported by His objective morality. So, no, I’m not going to account for them. They were immoral acts, plain and simple, and are thus not connected to God’s objective morality.
You also asked, very specifically, why the morals of Judeo-Christian morality are better. I explained it, with examples, which you just refused to accept. Yet it remains a fact that Christians have been righting wrongs committed by Christians for centuries. Christian priests stood up against Christian powers who preached faulty, self-serving doctrine. Christians ended the monopoly of the Bible, giving the word to the people to learn for themselves, and the domination of society by the Catholic church soon crumbled. The divine right of kings crumbled. The rigid divisions of class crumbled. The causes of freedom and equality, of the rights of all human beings, advanced. People set out to make new lives for themselves where they could worship as they thought best. They became more educated and informed. The founded a nation based entirely on the principle of human rights. They ended slavery, advanced women’s rights, stifled prejudicial laws, and more. All the work of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not some secular movement.
If you want an objective reason why we should follow Christian morality: if everybody did, there would be no murders, no liars, no stealing, no homes and marriages broken by adultery, no pregnancies outside of marriage, and there would instead be an overflowing of kindness and charity, of decency and integrity, of hope and joy. It is a fact that the erosion of these morals it directly linked to much of the suffering and turmoil at work in the world today, because people have been turning away from them, persuaded by moral relativism, “It’s not really a bad thing for me to do this for such-and-such reason.”
Speaking of, yes, you are right, they are making excuses for their actions. That is moral relativism in a nutshell. Those who are guilty of it will always scream about being judged, proclaiming they did nothing wrong.
The only way we can say they *did* do something wrong is if we have a morality which is not, ever, subjective, only objective. If we don’t have that, then anything goes.
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Hello Merlin, I’ve not tried to misrepresent you, the things I’ve said are responding to things I thought you were saying, so apologies if that was inaccurate.
I’ve never said that I am a moral relativist, or that I am advocating for it. Everything I’ve said has been for subjective morality only. I don’t feel it’s fair to say not being able to agree is a problem exclusively for me. There are thousands of sects of Christianity all claiming to have objective morality, yet they can’t agree either.
Thankfully subjective morality doesn’t function as a one time moment inside a vacuum between two people. I think its strength is that many need to agree on it before laws are formed. If the majority agrees, but they agree on something that is mistaken, for example that stealing is acceptable, through the experience of being stolen from, many minds can be changed until it becomes the popular opinion and the attitude towards morality can be changed. In this regard I very much consider subjective morality to be self-correcting.
Most people still agree that murder is wrong, rape is wrong, stealing is wrong etc but the reason why there is still so much debate is that we can’t agree on the finer details. We ourselves aren’t even arguing about what is/what isn’t moral but the strengths and downsides of different moral systems.
I think part of my misunderstanding might have been interpreting all of these things like colonialism being to stop sati as excuses etc. I didn’t realise just how much we agreed that these things were immoral. So if we agree that these things are immoral, surely we should also agree that this objective moral system did not work out very well at all for the majority of Christian history?
Looking through the list of examples of the corrections Christians have done I can’t accept that all of them were done as a consequence of Judeo-Christian values and some can be better attributed to emerging as a consequence of the enlightenment, rise of constitutionalism, political revolutions, economic change and weakening power of the church. History is complicated and messy, so I think it’s a mistake to take credit for everything.
That is not to say that Christianity hasn’t done any good whatsoever, but I think it’s very much worth mentioning that most if not all of these things have been Christians believing in one objective morality arguing against Christians believing in another.
I think we already agree that it would be impossible for everyone to follow objective Christian moral values (or even one person) so this society couldn’t exist. I think the better question is what system best works for the flawed people we know that we are, so I think that’s the standard we need to use.
The society we got when the church was powerful enough to make sure everyone followed objective Christian morality much closer led to the immoralities we have both condemned, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back there.
I don’t understand why you think the society we have now is so problematic. Issues such as women’s rights, equality between races, LGBTQ+, and democracy have all improved massively. People are still working to improve these rights. The only part I might concede to show that things are going backwards is in terms of abortion being banned in America, but this massive degradation of women’s reproductive rights is mainly the fault of Christianity, so very much not the failing of secular humanism.
If I just stick to the bible passages given in my last response, this hypothetical Christian society would also have slavery, murder, condemnation of homosexuals and inequality of women, so I think the society where everyone had to follow the laws of one of the secular countries mentioned previously would be much better. I think this gets back to our differences in the nature of the creator and how we can trust them to be moral.
Making reasons and arguments for moral actions is very much essential to subjective morality to work. Watch how they don’t say “I don’t accept your moral system” but treat it as if there is some kind of moral standard that exists which they both should understand.
I accept the criticism that you cannot objectively say things are wrong on subjective morality. But I don’t think it matters in practical terms because of the law of human nature.
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I must beg your pardon for how long it has taken me to reply to your last comment. I felt a great need to take my time considering my answer. This is, as you know, a serious subject, and I sense that we may want to end this thread, lest we end up talking in circles and tossing hot-button topics back and forth, ya know?
First and foremost, I happened to find that source about ancient cultures which I had not made a note of:https://preview.redd.it/ut5wgtmb8a571.png?width=526&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9abdb82e2342ee08a7e15ee3b2b3960491a075e
I want to clarify and emphasize my view of objective vs non-objective morality.
One can *claim* to have objective morality, but this is not the same as actually having it. God has it. We do not. And we never will without Him, because we do not have His perspective. Thus, the various sects can wave around their morality all they like, and what they have which lines up with Him is good, but using *their* claims to dismiss the validity of objective morality is like saying, “counterfeit money exists, so real money has no value.”
Subjective morality, as I see it, is the same as relative morality. That which is subjective is relative, and that which is relative is subjective. That is the nature of what they are.
And as you mention how the sects and individuals of Christianity can’t seem to all agree, that, to me, just illustrates how much we need God to teach us, rather than leave it up to our limited, subjective, relative perspectives.
You also mention the process of making laws. But the making of laws is not dictated by morals, it is dictated by who holds the power. Remember, the very notion of everyday people having any sort of voice in the law of the land is relatively new and has not become normal for most of the world’s population. Thievery has been outlawed and punished by death in some cultures not because it’s wrong, but because it breaks the unspoken social contract. We must not harm each other too badly if we are to live together as we need to.
And yet, from ancient times even until now, where we are all ostensibly given some nominal power to discuss and alter the law, there have always been those who are permitted to break the law and get away with it, because they have power which makes them too difficult to just get rid of. That is subjective morality at work: rules for thee but not for me.
Most people agree that murder is wrong? Well, that depends on who is getting murdered. I have heard testimony of when Ronald Reagan was shot, and Democrats were glad. I myself witnessed when a gunman shot at Republican politicians playing a game of baseball, and Democrats were happy about it. The KKK hung black people and their white friends, just as blacks were once enslaved as some non-human creature, and just as black mobs today have been assaulting and murdering whites, blacks, and officers of the law, and people have been celebrating. All of these ought to be seen as wrong, yes? And yet, people have celebrated the doing of them, and that’s not even going into what the Nazis did to the Jews, the gays, the disabled… “the unwanted,” which were condemned to die because “they weren’t human.”
And, oh, the poetic irony of you, yourself, saying that people generally agree that murder is wrong, and then, in the very same comment, advocating the mass slaughter of babies, so long as it can be called “abortion.” Which, for the record, it was *not* “made illegal” to abort them, it was turned back to the authority of the states to decide, each one on their own, instead of the federal government.
So secular movements, with their subjective, relative, non-existent morality, slaughter a hundred million people or more in the 20th century – which dwarfs even the worst and most unpleasantly bloodstained face of Christianity’s two thousand years – and you hold up the slaughter of millions upon millions of babies as a proof of something good it has done? Alongside the advancement of gay marriage, which, even if that were a good thing, would hardly compare to the goodness accomplished by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which was also behind the Enlightenment?
You asked me what is so wrong with the world today. I would say the worship of the self above all, the unleashing of every appetite without restraint, the withering of love, the suppression of the family, the conflagration of hatred, the proliferation of pornography and every other sexual immorality, the reversion to our base impulses and primitive desires, the stealing and dealing of children, the slaughter of innocents, the establishment of lies where truth once stood, the abandonment of reason for madness, and so much more.
One need look no further than the so-called advancement of LGBTQ+ rights, which has made no one I have met happier, and which has been used, on the one hand, as an excuse to persecute innocent Christians and, on the other hand, has been used to advance the physical and psychological butchery of the trans movement, leaving children maimed and brutalized for the rest of their lives, which end more often in suicide *after* transition than *before.*
In the face of all that, you have a handful of Bible passages that you dislike? If you truly believe that you understand them, then, forgive my boldness, but I must say, plainly: you are wrong.
To condemn homosexuality is not the same as to condemn homosexuals. To say that women (and men) should dress modestly is not to rob them of any rights. And to have rules governing the contracts of bondsmen in the Old Testament is not the same as to endorse slavery today. We have plenty of contracts today which are called “employment,” and those are not slavery.
The precepts of Christianity inherently enhance equality among all peoples without regard to race, sex, class, or anything else. It takes human nature, which is anything but good, and turns entire civilizations into something better, by way of teaching people, one lesson at a time, His objective morality.
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P.S. forgot to mention the normalization of pedophiles, as we have seen, before our very eyes, their rebranding as “minor attracted persons” in public discourse, also courtesy of the political powers behind gay marriage.
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The long time is understandable, don’t worry about it. I’m glad you came back to talk. I needed a long time as well.
I think living in different countries means that these topics are not nearly as common to me, so I’m happy to follow what feels better for you as I can understand it might sometimes feel like it’s all you hear about.
I’m glad you tracked down the quote. To say that Christianity revolutionised everything would require a lot more historic knowledge than I have, but certainly good things have come out of it.
I agree that if God is real people need to learn from him, and this should converge to one consistent understanding that everyone can follow, and this would fix the problem mentioned. The problem is that this hasn’t happened yet, and I’m convinced that it never will, so what understanding do you follow? How do you decide this other than subjectively? To this extent, even if this practical standard does exist, you can’t follow it practically. Even if there are benefits to an objective moral standard, we can’t get them if we need to use our own subjectivity to decide what it is.
The question of interpretation is very important, especially when it comes to passages from the bible on slavery which you said I’d interpreted wrong, despite the fact that it literally tells people to take slaves. If you were to just take Christian understanding over its entire lifetime, the majority opinion has been my own, otherwise it would have been outlawed far sooner. Practically speaking then, if this isn’t what the bible passage is saying, what a massive failure it turned out to be. Can we at least agree that objective morality loses its benefit completely when it can only be interpreted subjectively?
My main point is that this objective moral standard has done very little for us, so it shouldn’t be considered as useful, or even superior to subjective morality.
Yes, laws can only really be influenced in this way in democracies where those in power are looking to gain votes and be popular. The same problem also applies to objective morality. A dictator who doesn’t care about others isn’t going to care about an objective moral standard.
Subjective morality very much needs discussion, debate, and willingness to change and improve to work; this is what I consider subjective morality to be in practical terms. The important thing to note is that with these things it can work. Secularism is quite new and was mainly allowed to emerge as a consequence of these kinds of systems.
You would get “One rule for me but not for thee” in all systems of morality because we are not perfect beings. I see subjective morality much more like the law of human nature than it is your own set of rules that you define for yourself by yourself and try to impose on others.
The thing about murder was that most people agree on it in general. It’s the specifics where people differ. You’ll struggle to find these same people saying it’s ok to murder everyone. This is what I was trying to say.
It took me a while to realise what you were talking about when you said the mass slaughter of babies, mainly because embryos and foetuses aren’t babies. Nobody is saying to kill babies, nobody is advocating for the murder of babies once they have been born. I can see how accusations like this would lead to very heated and angry debate.
To clarify my stance, I’m not for abortion in every circumstance. I think there is a line to draw between alive and not, but I think that occurs later, most likely at a time where abortions are essentially synonymous with abortions for the health of the mother, so in pretty much all cases it’s a good thing.
The vast majority of abortions take place before the 13th week of pregnancy (https://srh.bmj.com/content/45/2/95 ), which is well before I see any reasonable argument for drawing the line between alive and not. See something like weeks 10-12 from the Carneige Collection here https://human-embryology.org/wiki/File:Human_Carnegie_staged_embryos_10-23.jpg which has the kind of thing we’re talking about.
If we had banned abortion then that would be the violation of (if we take your figure) the reproductive rights of 100 million women for the gain of literally no-one, except maybe those who are sexist. I don’t feel it’s a good idea to needlessly harm these millions of people who are definitely alive for those who aren’t. It’s not wrong for the same reason masturbation is not mass genocide.
I didn’t know it wasn’t illegal in America necessarily so that’s good to know. I was referencing what secular humanism has achieved in its extremely short lifespan compared to the massive lifespan of Christianity, not that Christianity hasn’t done more. I was drawing attention to the fact that it hasn’t been given the same opportunities as Christianity because those ideologies have been persecuted, largely by Christianity. Also Christianity doesn’t get to grind all scientific advancement to a halt then claim credit for starting it up again, when you look at the history of the church persecuting scientific advancement, it’s quite obvious that it happened as a result of the church losing a significant amount of power.
Your description of the problems of the world today don’t sound as bad as the problems of 100 years ago. Are these reasons really compelling enough to jump into a time machine 100 years ago and grow up to live through the second world war? Problems such as worshipping of the self, indulging in appetites, hatred, stealing and dealing of children, murder of innocents, abandonment of reason are vague enough that I feel they could be said about every culture. I feel the biggest issue is the media making us believe everything is so awful in comparison to before. Health is up, wars are down, deaths in wars are down (despite the fact that we have the power and numbers to make them far worse) and crime is down, but you wouldn’t know it from the news pages.
I think we must be in different circles because the advancement of trans rights has made lots of people happy, most notably LGBTQ+ people. Fighting for your rights and gaining equality is not prosecuting those who are trying to deny those rights. Realignment surgery should only be allowed for adults, and does have a minimum wage of 18 in the UK, and by the looks of it in America too, so it’s not affecting children when done right, and if it does, the solution is to have a minimum age of 18, not to outright ban the operations. Do you have a source for the suicide rates?
Condemning homosexuality is condemning homosexuals because it’s who they are, it’s a part of their identity. It’s oppressing their freedom to love who they love when it’s not your business and has nothing to do with you. If God is real, I don’t even think he has the right to intervene between two consenting adults.
It’s far more than a handful of bible passages, its passages that come up pretty much every time I read the bible, which is why I found it difficult to read as a Christian. It was painful trying to take life advice from a book where I needed to rationalise and justify immoralities every time I read it. As discussed previously, it’s very much up to subjective interpretation, so saying my interpretation is wrong is besides the point, the fact that historically the majority of Christians have interpreted it in the same way as I do is very much the problem.
As for the P.S, I don’t think this is really a term outside of America. I’ve never heard it said by someone here, so I’m not very familiar with it. It sounds like it’s just trying to make the distinction between child rapist and someone who understands that sexual relations with children are immoral and therefore they won’t engage in them more clear. It’s a fair distinction to make when you can’t control what you are attracted to. It could just have easily been you, me or anyone. You have no control over your sexual desires just as much as they do, so I can understand why it’s a good thing for the term to exist. It doesn’t mean you should let them near children, just that you shouldn’t leap to the conclusion that they have raped a child.
Your last section about Christianity enhancing equality is let down unfortunately. I would love to see this statement reinforced by the actions of Christianity and not just the words. You cannot simultaneously claim this and also discriminate against homosexuals, lgbtq+ and women. The statement just obviously isn’t true.
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To wrap things up on my end:
My understanding isn’t so much that we will converge on singular, consistent understanding of morality, as that we will learn it. God is the greatest of teachers, but even He can only lead us – as individuals and societies – as quickly as we will allow Him to. For instance, when He instructed Moses on Mt. Sinai, He gave the man more, much more, than just Ten Commandments. First He gave Moses a higher law, but Moses saw the Israelites would not keep it, so He gave him the Ten Commandments, and Moses broke the tablets because, again, the Israelites would not keep them, and so they tried an even lower level. It’s a bit like when He directed them to enter Canaan, but ten of twelve scouts told terrible, fearful things of the inhabitants, so the Israelites said no. Then God struck the ten of them dead and told the Israelites they’d be wandering around for awhile instead, according to their choice. The Israelites tried to change their minds, and got thrashed when they invaded, now without God’s blessing. Of course God knew this was going to happen, but He made the offer of entry into a promised land, and enforced their refusal to obey, specifically so they’d learn from the experience and listen to Him. Fast forward a good while, and the laws of the Hebrews were all about not doing this, not doing that, and so on and so forth. Then Jesus came along and taught a higher law, one above merely the do’s and do not’s, where it’s not enough to simply refrain from adultery, for instance, but we must strive to control the very desires which can lead to such. It’s not enough to refrain from doing bad, as well; we must strive to do good.
In short, my understanding is that God teaches us as much as we will let Him. Eventually, we will learn and understand everything, partially (even majorly) because we will have passed through the experience of this life, where we do *not* know everything. But we must progress that way one step at a time, line upon line and precept upon precept, grace upon grace.
As for why “this objective moral standard has done very little for us,” that would be because we keep deviating from it. Seriously, you cannot see what is going wrong when people break the rules and then blame the rules for it. If I may be so bold as to exaggerate, when the law says, “Thou shalt not kill,” it doesn’t make much sense to blame the rule for all the murders committed, ya know?
If every spouse was loving and faithful, would not the world be better? If everyone was honest and kind and sought to earn their way while also helping those in need, would the world not be better? If everyone practiced complete monogamy and waited until marriage, would the world not be better?
Would there be any issue of abortion at all if people either 1) just kept it in their pants or 2) just took responsibility for their actions?
That, by the way, is my answer to the so-called “reproductive rights of women.” If they choose to have sex, they have already exercised that right. Abortion is murder for no better reason than to get out of the consequences of their immoral actions. Like King David committing murder to cover up sleeping with another man’s wife.
And yes, the fetus *is* a baby. It *is* a child. It *is* a human being. The root of fetus means “small child or small one.” So saying a fetus isn’t a baby is saying “a baby isn’t a baby.” It is simply irrational in every sense, including scientific. And this is a point on which there is no middle ground, thus how hotly contested it is.
That is the way of it. People say “murder” is bad, but they also insist that the people they don’t like, the people they hate, the people they want to see gone are “not people.” Inconvenient babies, inconvenient elderly, the unwanted gypsies, disabled, gays, and Jews of Nazi concentration camp renown, the blacks who were enslaved, the whites of today who happen to have the same skin color as slave owners a hundred and sixty years ago, and so on.
I actually had a chance to read up a bit on deaf culture and history awhile back. Did you know that, in the past, people actually tried to say deaf people did not and could not possess the intelligence of normal people, so they weren’t actually people, more like trained animals? True story.
And yes, here in America, at least, the advocates for abortion proclaim that it should be perfectly fine to abort any baby for any reason at any time prior to delivery, and even for some time afterward. I have seen it for years – decades, actually – straight from their own mouths. Just as they also say the elderly should be given assisted suicide. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not. Not in the slightest.
Oh, and trans surgeries are being performed on children in the USA. They’ve even introduced bills in states like California which would allow schools to enable children in this direction without needing to inform their parents at all. Heck, they’ve also been taking children from their parents because said parents oppose trans surgeries. It’s happened. The butchery is real and it is being pushed on impressionable children who still have no idea who they really are, but who go through phases and dig in their heels and are told that this will make them happy.
On which note, you say that homosexuality is who they are, but I argue that it is not. It is a particular urge, yes, but people have been straight and then been gay and then been straight again. An urge is nothing more than that: an urge.
We have all sorts of urges, but they are not who we are. We might have an urge to be violent, but we aren’t violent until we indulge in it. We might have an urge to lie – and there are pathological liars who need help – but we are not liars until we lie. We might have an urge to do something kind, but we are not kind until we actually do something kind.
So, no, we do not discriminate against anyone, not if we’re doing as we should. But we do advance the equality of all, and demand that all people’s rights be protected equally, including a person’s right to be born, a confused child’s right to proper care that doesn’t mutilate them for a quick buck, and a religious person’s right to not be involved in a gay wedding – and I can provide a laundry list of instances where, yes, gay marriage has been used to persecute Christians who just didn’t want to be part of a gay wedding.
Oh, and a child’s right to be safe from predators, which, I promise you, the rebranding of pedophiles as “minor attracted” is not limited to those who have not raped a child.
…we’ve kind of been all over the place here, so to leave off on the main point of all this:
One plus one equals two. That is truth. It is not open to subjective debate, though I will not be surprised to see people try. That is objective morality: this is the right thing to do, for these reasons, and these are the wrong things to do, for these reasons. We can stand on that, and build on that, and remain secure on that. Anything else, anything less certain than this, is ultimately uncertain, and will not support us for long.
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Hi Merlin. Happy to wrap up here if you are. I’ll just respond to the points mentioned and try not to bring up any new topics, apologies if the delay has been so long that you forgot what you wrote originally. I acknowledge how difficult it is to talk with people who disagree with you on these kinds of things and am glad we’ve been able to do so fairly well. Depending on what side of the fence you fall on you’re either a baby murderer or human rights abuser. In many cases people tend to just block everyone who disagrees with them which makes the polarization worse, so I hope at the very least we can understand each other’s perspective better.
The first thing to note is that I think we’ve found common ground. You’ve said that objective morality has done little for us because we keep deviating from it. I agree. This is mainly what I’ve been trying to say. If the results and outcomes are not distinguishable from subjective morality I don’t feel it’s superior in practical terms.
I think there is an argument, if objective morality were to truly exist, that it would work better if humans were better. That is, if we could actually agree (or properly understand) the morality universally. But because we are not like this, I really don’t feel the supposed superiority of objective morality is actually there. This isn’t trying to blame the ruleset for the people who break it, but arguing that the ruleset is no better than the other because it doesn’t make people act any better. I feel it’s reasonable to judge sets of morality on practical results, judging it on anything else seems irrelevant.
I really like the concept of morality improving. It’s what I feel would happen with subjective morality as well. If morality can improve over time and things can get better like you described then that’s great. I think the time to say that objective morality is better however is when we see this happen and not before.
As for abortion, the right should be granted because the fetus is not a human life. Suppressing the right based on misunderstandings of science is sexist, it is an issue of such importance that it cannot afford to be misunderstood.
The scientific perspective is the only one that matters when determining if it’s a human life, not the origin of the word. I don’t know what science you’re looking at because I’ve found the opposite. There is absolutely nothing compelling for ‘life begins at conception’ from a scientific perspective, so it is a point on the timeline. We know that consciousness comes from brains, so the cutoff would naturally be around the time the brain matures, which is well after the first 12 weeks the vast majority of abortions occur, and closer to the end of the second trimester.
Another argument from the scientific perspective is that the fetus becomes a human life at the age where it could survive on its own outside the womb. This would be around a similar time, but not even nearly close to immediately after conception, nor the vast majority of abortions that take place.
Sex isn’t immoral, and women who are raped or have sex with those who decide to remove their condom without telling her would have all forms of reproductive rights taken away from her. This answer is worthless to these women. This answer is also worthless to underage children who don’t understand the consequences of what they’re doing.
We live in a world where birth control is widely available and people can have sex safely. Telling people to keep it in their pants is unrealistic, people using birth control and being taught what to do if it goes wrong e.g. if the condom splits would be a much better way of reducing abortions, but what’s most ridiculous is that it tends to be the people who are trying to ban abortion who also want to ban birth control.
I’d much rather live in a freer society, I find the objective morality of the bible terrifying which was why I wrote the post originally.
As I said before, if surgery (not butchery) is happening to children the solution is to stop children from having it, not to ban it for everyone completely. If it’s being pushed on children the solution is to not push it on children, not to ban it for everyone completely.
Homosexuality is love, you can’t incorrectly label it as an excuse to discriminate against those who want to practice it. There has been extensive research into sexual orientation conversion therapy which has shown it to be useless, so if you are going to destroy the meaning of the word and label it as a simple urge, it clearly cannot be controlled like the others.
Why is homosexuality wrong anyway? It’s two people who love each other being together, there isn’t anything wrong with that. I don’t see how you could argue against it from any aspect other than a religious one, which is a good sign that there isn’t a good reason to discriminate against it, as if there were a good reason people would be saying that instead. You also can’t force your religious doctrines on those who don’t believe it.
Christianity can’t have it both ways, it can’t claim to promote equality while discriminating against groups of people. Christianity not understanding abortion and homosexuality doesn’t give them the right to ban it and children doing gender reformation surgery (which nearly 100% don’t regret doing anyway) doesn’t give people the right to ban it for adults.
Of course Christians have the right to not go to gay weddings, they just don’t have the right to prevent them from happening. I think churches have a right to not host gay weddings if they don’t want to, but they don’t have the right to stop other churches from hosting gay weddings in their churches or to stop gay weddings in secular buildings. There are laundry lists of examples of persecution on both sides, I don’t really think it’s a valid argument.
If what you’ve said about the word ‘minor attracted persons’ is true then that isn’t great. I would not regard it as nearly as bad as something like banning homosexuality however, it is ultimately just a name change, and anyone who harms a child should still be punished in the same way.
Yes 1+1 is two, but we’re yet to see Christian morality as something that all Christians can all stand on and agree on, so this benefit is not present. Things in the bible are a bedrock until our understanding improves. The passages about slavery were moral truth until the majority of society realized that slavery was wrong, then they became metaphorical. The passages in genesis were scientific truth until we discovered that they couldn’t be scientifically correct, then they became metaphorical. Passages forcing women to marry the man who raped them was moral truth until people rationalised it away as metaphorical or covenant theology. People will use (and some do already) the same excuses when talking about the bible condemning homosexuality. I think it’s better to cut out the part that’s slowing us down, and just work on being better, that is what subjective morality is ultimately.
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Here’s the trouble with deliberately winding things down: having to wrestle with the urge to point out “one more thing,” LOL. Heh, sometimes I am hopeless. 😉
To keep this brief, just a few questions:
Have you researched scientific arguments against abortion?
If you argue that one “becomes human” when one is able to survive, does this imply that one ceases to be human when one cannot survive independently, for whatever reason?
If the scientific purpose of sexual intercourse is to perpetuate the species, then how is homosexuality anything but unscientific, and literally unnatural?
Is homosexuality defined by anything other than who one is willing to have intercourse with? Is that not the definition of an urge?
Is any other “uncontrollable” urge met with anything other than treatment, therapy, or perhaps even confinement when dealing with the more dangerous urges like violence?
If the urge is “uncontrollable,” then how do you explain the people who live their lives controlling it?
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Yeah I completely understand that feeling. I obviously feel I should be able to respond if I want to, and of course that by necessity must involve bringing up new things.
My research has focused on science on what part develops when, so it’s more contemplating what I think being alive means, and researching at what stage that is possible to occur. It’s researching science more than scientific arguments.
If they cannot survive independently for any reason they die and cease to exist, I would not consider someone who is dead as alive. You make it sound like I’m saying unless they can go to work and provide for themselves they are not alive, this is completely not what I mean. Babies born after the cutoff can exist by themselves in terms of as long as you take care of them they can live, babies before that cutoff will die because the body has not developed enough to support their existence.
I don’t agree with you that reproduction is the only purpose for sex. I think most people do it because it feels good, the reason why it feels so good is because evolution made us this way. Those who didn’t feel good doing it did it considerably less hence they didn’t have children.
Homosexuality is natural because it occurs naturally in nature, humans are a part of nature.
I don’t see being unnatural as a reason why it’s bad if it doesn’t harm anyone. Many medicines are produced with chemicals in a factory, these don’t occur in nature so they are unnatural, but there is nothing wrong with taking them.
No that isn’t what homosexuality is defined as. I’d define it as a love like any other that goes far deeper than sex. Is love an urge?
People can live their life not having sex, what I’m referring to here is that they can’t stop being homosexual.
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People *have* stopped being homosexual.
If homosexuality, or heterosexuality, or any other orientation, were about love instead of who one is willing to have intercourse with – and I think we can agree to the obvious that love and lust are not the same, yes? – then would that not legitimize all sorts of other things like pedophilia, necrophilia, incest, bestiality, etc? Is that not exactly the essence of the argument they use? Can you really argue in favor of the one without arguing in favor of the others? Oh, these two guys love each other, and this old man and a little girl whose mature for her age love each other, and these two siblings love each other, and this parent and offspring love each other, and this man loves a goat, and this girl loves a dog, and this man isn’t hurting the person whose corpse he’s using, and so on and so forth. Can your argument really be limited to just one out of the entire lot?
Not to mention, how can gender be changed if sexual orientation can’t be?
You are correct, reproduction is not the only purpose for sex. There are other reasons, including the spiritual, the emotional, and the psychological. But as for the physical, you mention, “Because it feels so good.” So, simple question: does one human’s right to “feel so good” outweigh another human’s right to live?
Yes, yes, you’ll say that we aren’t human until some magical moment when we can survive, etc., but the question is “yes” or “no.”
On which note, you mention that when a body cannot keep itself alive, it dies, yes? So are the people who must rely on machines and medicines and medical care to keep themselves alive, when otherwise they would be dead, either not human or not alive?
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Hi Merlin, might not have time to look at the second comment now but should be able to reply to this one!
Who are these people who have stopped being homosexual?
Love is not lust, yes. Because all of these things listed e.g. Paedophilia are quite different, you can quite easily argue for one but not the others. Homosexuality is done between consenting adults, you can’t say this about paedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality. The main problem with incest isn’t the relationship but the fact their children will be born with birth defects, you cannot say this at all about homosexuality.
Here I was just saying that I disagree on what the purpose of sex is, I didn’t intend it to be an argument for abortion so sorry if it came across that way.
Yes I struggle to see how someome can be between alive and dead, answering the question yes or no is the hard part though. A cutoff such as when the body can support itself was just given as one of the scientific positions on the start of life someone might choose to take, not necessarily my own opinion.
I would consider people on life support to be alive just like babies who need care immediately after birth are alive. This technology keeps them alive until they are dead.
With that in mind my personal view is probably that it’s a case of whichever one comes first, birth or being able to support themselves. It doesn’t make sense to me that it could be born but each cell at the time is alive, only for all cells to be dead later and the whole time it never wasn’t alive. Defining whether it’s a human life worthy of human rights is probably where I would also say that it is whatever comes first: birth or the development of consciousness.
At this point it becomes clear that I should have mentioned earlier that birth is another one of possible scientific opinions to have on the start of life.
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Having considered for a moment, I will leave the research of who has stopped being gay to you, and advise that you may want to also look into those who are no longer trans, who discovered only after being maimed and sacrificed on the altar of an agenda that they had entirely separate issues to deal with rather than somehow being born in the wrong body.
I just want to ask one more question: how do you account for love?
I mean, if we were not made by God but just came into being after some kind of monkey started walking upright, then what is love? Is it just neurochemical reactions instilled in us by our evolutionary need to produce children and continue our species? Or is it something more?
As I see it, the argument against homosexuality stands either way. Either love is intended to encourage us towards continuing our species, which homosexuality does not, or it is something much more than merely who one is attracted to and is willing to have intercourse with, which is all that distinguishes homosexuality from heterosexuality.
For that matter, as you mention various distinctions between homosexuality and other deviant sexual behaviors, what about the people who can now call themselves “polyamorous?” If homosexuality is something which cannot be controlled, then is the urge to get with a lot of people, sometimes justified as loving multiple people, also something which supposedly can’t be controlled? What then is left for love if one need not even be faithful?
(ok, one question, with many facets that was)
…and purely out of curiosity over something completely unconnected, if we were not created by God, then how do you explain language? If it evolved from the basic grunts and hoots and such of beast-level communication, then it should have begun very simply as well, no? And yet the oldest languages we know of are every bit as complex and intricate as modern languages, sometimes even more so. It is unlikely in the extreme, I would say, that language developed so completely *before* writing came along.
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Fair enough I’ll look into it. I got married yesterday so I’m still very busy, it might have to wait for things to calm down haha.
I think you can only account for love materially whether the soul exists or not. If the soul exists you wouldn’t expect these emotions to go away during brain damage or etc but they do. So it’s either that the soul doesn’t exist or is not responsible for these kinds of things.
I don’t think understanding what love is makes it any less significant. If the soul exists we’ll eventually be able to study it scientifically and put it in equally unappealing terms.
It seems like you’re trying to say that on a materialistic world view the only purpose of love is to continue the species. This is to massively underestimate what love is, and it also assumes a purpose. There is no objective purpose on a materialistic world view, you have to find your purposes for yourself. I think we both agree freedom is a good thing, there is nothing wrong with a purpose that doesn’t harm anyone.
On this logic heterosexual partners who never want children so always have sex using birth control are also immoral, which is something that is massively against freedom.
If love is more than just material then it should also be supported for homosexual love too, so I don’t see how the second point stands either.
I don’t see anything wrong with having polyamorous relationships if everyone consents and understands what the relationship is. My understanding from polyamorous people online is that it is multiple actual relationships as opposed to just sex and nothing else.
This leaves every room for love in my opinion. It’s about the promise you have with each other. One of the promises my wife and I have made is to be faithful, however if a different couple were to clearly say that they didn’t want to always be faithful then I don’t think it’s at all my business to say they can’t.
I’m going to have to leave the research on the evolution of language to you I think, scientific journals are probably more convincing than myself anyway haha.
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Oh, one more: why do you say the passages in Genesis are unscientific? They seem to actually be backed up quite well by very modern science which ancient prophets had absolutely no knowledge of.
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I made a post about this if you want to see a massive breakdown. The world took a lot more than 7 days to be made, the order of things being created is wrong e.g. Plants were not created before the sun etc. Do you know about the concept of the ferminant? This is the Christian understanding of what the world was like based on Genesis, until it was proven wrong.
Genesis doesn’t get everything wrong, but it gets a lot in my opinion.
I would equally be interested in why it is very well backed up by science, and also how that helped us as practically until it was scientifically proven for real.
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Firstly, that they got anything at all right – as compared to any other creation story – should speak volumes to you.
Secondly, it depends on one’s view of “practical,” but I have had enough people say, “Why didn’t God teach the old prophets the science of everything he was showing them” to answer that it isn’t really practical at all save in establishing that He is the Creator.
Thirdly, don’t get too hung up on “days.” Not only is there indication that these referred to stages, rather then literal 24-hour periods, but it matters a bit less whether it is day or night when there’s not much difference between the two.
As for the science of Genesis, consider:
There was light and darkness, and so there was the sun and the moon, but the sky was a very different sight a few billion years ago than it is today. Day and night and seasons didn’t matter much until the newborn stars moved farther away, and the solar wind cleared up the skies, and the Earth stopped being a fireball as the stormy clouds of evaporated water dissipated as they fell to the molten surface and created the crust on which the seas came to rest, from which seas a chunk arose to become land and broke apart to become the continents. That, there, accounts for how there would be night and day and seas and land and such before there was only the normal, regular cycle of day and night and summer and winter.
I have read many creation stories, and Genesis stands out for having plants arise from land while animals arose from the seas. This, too, is now backed by science.
It took me some time to see how life would come from the seas and zip straight to winged creatures, all manner of birds. It has since occurred to me that a prophet looking at the dinosaurs, which we now know were much more feathery than scaly, would probably just describe them as really weird and terrifying birds of all sorts.
And *then* comes the creation of all the mammalian life – yes, it mentions whales earlier, but what else is a prophet going to call the leviathans of the deep? – topped off with a creature that is actually quite young in terms of the world’s lifespan: humans. Humans come *after* all the other creatures, not before. How is it that almost every creation story I’ve ever heard of gets that one right, no matter what else they get wrong?
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Looks like I had time after all!
The things that it got right aren’t necessary difficult, for example that the universe had a beginning compared to being eternal is a 50/50 guess if you don’t know the answer. Things like plants being before animals is technically likely to be true, but if you were to look at the single celled organisms scientists suppose to be the first types of life you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two etc.
I would argue that establishing god as the definite creator would be an extremely practical thing to do.
The whole days thing is exactly what I’m talking about. Before we discovered the age of the universe, it was the common view to take it at 7 24 hour days, it was only the advancement of science that caused people to take it metaphorically.
I didn’t find this description of Genesis in the bible, all it said was that God gathered the waters together to let dry land appear, which is the only way to separate water and land if they are both together at the same time.
That’s interesting, do you know the source for the origin of plant life being on land?
I’m a bit confused by the dinosaur comment because they would have evolved long after the origin of life. Doesn’t Genesis say that there is no evolution and that these birds were just created by God?
Yeah they got humans coming later correct, how likely was this to happen though? People tend to think animals are separate to people, so it’s another 50/50 guess.
The impressive things to get right are the ones where there is a massive number of possibilities, for example an exact description of the universe with regards to what stars are, the big bang, orbits etc.
I’m not saying that we should quickly dismiss the successes, but that we shouldn’t count the hits and ignore the misses, of which there are more.
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unsurprisingly, christian cultists can’t agree on what morals their imaginary friend wants, so they are all failures, and their god is imaginary nonsense.
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Who exactly is it that identifies as a ‘Christian cultist’ anyway? This label isn’t exactly helpful, and frankly rude. I don’t know if this statement is intended to apply to a group billions of members in size, but it certainly comes across that way.
How does it follow that because Christians can’t agree on every single moral issue that Christianity is not true? Facts to not care about beliefs, so if everyone disagreed on literally everything, it doesn’t stop the underlying objective morality from existing, just less likely based on the evidence.
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Every Christian is a cultist, and since not one can show that your morals are god approved, it seems they are all lying when they claim their morality is objective. Which christain morality is the “right” one?
it’s not rude at all, it’s the truth. christians have quite a cult, that says to abandon all they have for the cult, including family, and says to multilate their body for the cult.
Oh dear, and such a lovely appeal to popularity too, since christians don’t agree on who of them are the real christians.
Christian morality is demonstrably subjective since they 1. can’t agree and 2. have to excuse their god from your morals since theirr god is a genocidal idiot. Happily, it doesn’t exist, and their sadistic fantasies will never come true.
“You can create objective moral values by grounding morality in anything: a God, yourself, statements such as “maximising happiness and minimising suffering” etc. From these things it’s possible to measure and arrive at an objective set of values which best meet your goal. But how do you decide which goal is the correct one? Ultimately it’s just your opinion as there has been no scientific discovery of an objective morality that actually exists, making objective morality subjective anyway. ”
complete nonsense. This,by definiton, would guarantee entirely subjective morality.
“Who exactly is it that identifies as a ‘Christian cultist’ anyway? This label isn’t exactly helpful, and frankly rude. I don’t know if this statement is intended to apply to a group billions of members in size, but it certainly comes across that way.
How does it follow that because Christians can’t agree on every single moral issue that Christianity is not true? Facts to not care about beliefs, so if everyone disagreed on literally everything, it doesn’t stop the underlying objective morality from existing, just less likely based on the evidence.”
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1. The assertion that “Every Christian is a cultist” seems based on your own specific interpretation. However, this characterization is an extreme and inaccurate representation of Christian beliefs.
2. It’s important to clarify that Christians are not intentionally lying. They are only expressing beliefs they genuinely hold.
3. The concern with being rude here lies in the misrepresentation of Christian beliefs. I recommend engaging in open conversations with Christians. It would help you understand actual Christian beliefs, not to mention helping you to engage in more accurate and respectful conversation.
4. Describing Christians as having “sadistic fantasies” is an extreme strawman that doesn’t accurately reflect their beliefs, see the previous point.
5. I’m a bit unsure why you mentioned that point about guaranteeing subjective morality – it seems like the same opinion I was trying to express. Why did you bring it up?
6. I also noticed my response to your comment still there in the thread. Was that intentional, or did it happen by mistake?
7. It would be appreciated if we could avoid making generalized statements that may contribute to a negative perception of atheists. We need to have mutual understanding and respect in order to even start making steps towards constructive conversation.
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Curious how you make many claims and have no evidence to back them up. It’s notable that you can’t show I’m wrong.
I was a christian dear, so your nonsense that I should speak to a christian is rather silly.
What is hell, the idea of eternal torture for disagreeing with your god, not sadistic?
yes, dear, your own comment is still in the thread. Why would I have anything to do with that?
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Ok let’s talk evidence: yourself when you were a Christian. You honestly believe you used to have sadistic fantasies? Did you care about it more than your own family?
It’s also notable how you demand for evidence without giving any yourself.
It’s also notable how you have stopped arguing that you are not rude, and have decided to just be rude instead.
If you used to be a Christian you should know better, and not even need me to say this.
Can you read the last two paragraphs of your own previous comment? It’s as if you’re trying to misunderstand me.
Hell is not what you think of when you say sadistic fantasy. Sadistic fantasies are fantasising about doing sadistic things in real life. Be more clear.
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Unsurprisngly, the christains in my church didn’t mention that bit about hating one’s family. Chritians selectively avoid the problematic bits of their bible. It was when I read the bible myself that I found out how that worked.
And showing you and christians to be wrong isn’t “rude”. You simply don’t like it.
ROFL. Hell is indeed a sadistic fantasy, It’s hilarious how you try to claim that one has to fantasize about doing things in “real life”. Ross, christians think that their nonsenes about heaven and hell are “real life”.
and, unsurprisingly, you can’t show that I am misunderstanding you. I’ve read my own comments, so you seem to have nothing.
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So if they are selectingly avoiding these things, they don’t actually believe that they are good, or true, which is all I was trying to say. If they don’t act on or believe in any of these things they are not cultists.
The rudeness comes from your attitude of acting as if you know the mind of Christians better than they do, your condescending tone, and your eagerness to label billions of people as nonsensical and/evil despite not having met them, and barely knowing anything about them.
This is the only reason I’m talking to you. I don’t want to tell people that I’m an atheist and they think I’m also going to be rude and terrible like you. There is no need for it. It’s also a guaranteed way of avoiding constructive conversation, and why would you want to do that?
Christians do not want to be the ones doing the torture. They don’t have sadistic fantasies of torturing others. This is all I mean.
Unsurprisingly you have still not understood me. In the reply I’m talking about you’ve put my entire comment at the end of it without response, so all I’m wondering is why? I’m not trying to pull anything over you, this is just to help me understand what you mean.
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“So if they are selectingly avoiding these things, they don’t actually believe that they are good, or true, which is all I was trying to say. If they don’t act on or believe in any of these things they are not cultists.”
They actually do believe it when they calim to believe the bible. They are simply ignorant thanks to how the cult avoids mentioning what’s in the bible and they avoiding reading something that is supposed to be how they are to exist.
A cult is merely a religion, and this cult/religion is quite like the connotation we have about cults now: following a leader, who tells them to give up all they have, to abandon family, and to mutilate their bodies.
Unsurprisngly, I’m not “rude” or “terrible”, I point how how these cults fail. Christains want torture to be done, so your attempts to claim “they dont’ want to do the torture” is a rather pathetic dodge, very much the “but but I’m just following orders” that nazis used in nuremberg so they weren’t held responsible for their beliefs. They agree with their bible which has the repeated promise of eternal torture from their god if someone doesn’t accept it.
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Hello again, what name should I call you by the way?
I get where you’re coming from a lot better now. The term ‘cultist’ generally brings to mind awful scenes of child sacrifice, death, sexual acts in front of unusual statues etc. so when you call Christians cultists this is what I thought of, and what I think a lot of others also think of, which is why I still don’t think it’s helpful to refer to Christians in this way. It’s the kind of thing that will just be dismissed because as I’m sure you’ll agree, most Christians don’t actually do that stuff.
So they believe these things because they believe the bible, but they are ignorant of these terrible things because they avoid reading them? How is it possible to believe something you are ignorant of?
I think it’s important to distinguish between doctrine and actions when it comes to cults. As actions speak louder than words, it’s important to judge these groups on their actions.
If we take your definition of following a leader who tells them to give up everything etc. Where are the quotes from leaders like the pope and bishop of Canterbury etc telling people to do this?
I think you’re probably not rude and terrible in general, you care about being seen as a good person. As such, I’ve noticed you haven’t been accusing what I’ve said as nonsense (which is just a rude way of saying I disagree with you), and stopped being as condesending. You were calling me ‘dear’ as if I was incapable of rational thought only a few comments ago so I congratulate you on your improvement.
I’m not saying that hell isn’t a terrible and horrible concept because it is. All I’m saying is that Christians don’t have these sadistic fantasies themselves. I get where you’re coming from with the neuremberg defence, and I think it’s a problem that Christianity does have to deal with, it’s just it feels a bit of a stretch to say therefore they have sadistic fantasies, do you get what I mean?
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you may call me Vel.
I don’t care what you call me, Ross, I know it’s a set of lies.
“So they believe these things because they believe the bible, but they are ignorant of these terrible things because they avoid reading them? How is it possible to believe something you are ignorant of?”
they accept that everything in the bible is true and good, with no question.
Christians do have those sadistic fantasies themselves. Again, Ross, christians believe in the circular argument: God is good is god is good is god is good…
I believe I “get” what you mean, and I consider you wrong since christians must consciously accept that anyone who dares not agree with them is claimed to deserve death and worse from their god.
Doctrine leads to action, and we have see these cultists kill each other and other people over doctrine. Happily, secular law keeps their nonsense in check.
My tactic is to put the christian’s metaphorical nose in the crap their bible says and show them what they really do claim to accept.
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Hi Vel, apologies for the long comment.
What exactly are you referring to when you say “it’s a set of lies” – the bible?
“they accept that everything in the bible is true and good, with no question.”
Hard disagree, I’ve spoken to many Christians, some of whom you can find in the comments section of previous posts, who say things like the old testament is not meant to be taken literally, these are Christians claiming that they don’t actually believe the events of the old testament are true.
I am guessing you’re aware of how Christians can often have doubts about their beliefs. You can find many YouTube videos from Christians online expressing what to do with your doubts if not. I was told at my church to pursue and investigate your doubts for yourself. It was doing this that caused me to become an atheist. Surely the existence of doubt amongst Christians is enough to show that they do not accept everything unquestioningly? Rather, this evidence shows Christians tend to think a lot.
Let’s try another approach and talk about theology. Christians disagree on hell in many different areas. You can find this quote said by the pope on many different reputable news sites: “”The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”
So no, Catholics don’t necessarily accept that people go to hell for atheistic beliefs. It’s certainly true that most Catholics think this statement needs a lot of clarification and additional context, but the fact that the leader of the whole church said this is pretty telling.
If you want to talk about Protestantism, the whole idea is that everyone falls short of the standard of God, and that actually nobody is deserving of heaven. They are in heaven only because of accepting Jesus. This is not a very nice system in my opinion, but the point is that their theology is not anybody who disagrees with them goes to hell.
It’s also worth mentioning that the current understanding of hell is more based on Danté’s eternal comedy than it is the bible. So if you’re trying to rub people’s nose in the bible, hell is not the topic to pick.
“Doctrine leads to action, and we have see these cultists kill each other and other people over doctrine.” – how on earth does this represent the billions of people claiming to be Christians? When you have a group so large, it would be a miracle if you didn’t get several cases like this. The mistake is assuming that all Christians are like this.
“My tactic is to put the christian’s metaphorical nose in the crap their bible says and show them what they really do claim to accept.”
It’s fine for you to have your own approach. Mine is that I just want to find out what’s true, and improve understanding and acceptance between our groups in the process. I don’t see it necessary to go further than that.
The approach that I’ve seen you give comes across as first trying to convince Christians that they believe something they actually don’t, then trying to explain why it’s wrong. Which seems a bit pointless to me.
Instead of trying to convince Christians that they believe something they don’t, I’m just happy that they don’t believe it in the first place.
This is why I recommended you to talk to Christians, the whole thing just comes across as if you haven’t talked to any.
The annoying thing is that if you were to change everything you have said about “all Christians” to “some Christians”, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
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No problem. Yep, the bible is a set of lies, repeatedly shown to be false and repeated for the benefit of the cult.
Yep, plenty of christains try to claim that the OT doesn’t apply to them, etc, and curious how jesus himself says it is.
And yep, plenty of Christians, who each make up their religion in their own image, give excuses on what to do about doubts, etc. They do indeed often say investigate your doubts for yourself which has the Christian looking for things to support their beliefs. The existence of doubt in Christians isn’t showing that they don’t’ accept everything unquestioningly. They look for reasons why to accept it.
There is no evidence that Christians think a lot. Indeed, what we see in reality shows this to be completely not the case since if they did think and did read the bible, they wouldn’t be Christians.
Christians, yet again, make up what they want, Ross. Most catholics are quite sure the pope is completely wrong. All this says is that the Christians think everyone will end up agreeing with them, the “every knee shall bow” nonsense.
Yep, the entirety of christnaity isnt’ a “very nice system” and again, the direct point of protestant theology is exactly everyone who doesn’t agree with them is going to hell. That’s used to scare people into the cults.
The current understanding of hell depends on the christain, so your false claims about it only being about Dante’s inferno is rathe ridiculous. And yep, it is the topic to pick since Dante got his ideas from the bible.
Again, Ross, you seem amazingly ignorant when it comes to Christian history, or intent on misrepresenting it. The entire accepted history of these “billions of people claiming to be christains” depends on their converting by the sword. You again try a common Christian excuse, the usual attempts to say but you can’t say all Christians are like this. I can and I do since their bible says kill the non-believer and the apostate.
You seem to think it anything but fine to have my own approach with your constant claiming I’m wrong.
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Unsurprisingly, you then again try to claim I am accusing Christians of believing what they don’t. That’s false since I can show that they *do* indeed believe what I have said. It’s in the bible. That they ignore it when convenient isn’t saying that isn’t part of their religion.
It’s called hypocrisy when someone claims to believe in the bible and when it is shown to be quite a failure, finds excuses why to continue. I do talk to christains, so you again fail. I was a Christian so your claim fails even more.
Saying some christains isn’t the truth. That’s why I don’t say that. They have their bible, the “word of god”. That’s not my claim, it’s theirs.
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Thanks for your thoughts Vel. I’ve tried condensing things as much as I can to hopefully avoid the risk of responding taking increasingly more and more time. If I’ve missed anything you want to ask about, just say and I’ll respond to it.
I think the possibly millions of hours of thoughtful Christians discussions on YouTube is good evidence that they do think. I’m happy to recommend some of these videos if you’re interested. Saying Christians don’t think because if they did they wouldn’t be Christians is circular reasoning and begging the question, and also not a good way of identifying if someone is thinking or not. Having thoughts, whether or not you personally agree with them, does indeed count as thinking.
I think it should be obvious that the history of Christianity does not represent the actions of Christians today, and to explain further would just be patronizing. We’ve just been discussing how cults are defined by their actions, so bringing up bible passages very few Christians actually follow isn’t helpful.
Even if I had the power to restrict your freedom of speech and make you adopt the same approach as me, I would not dare use it. If at any point in my comments it has come across as the opposite, I apologise.
I don’t think that means that I shouldn’t be free to criticize approaches I don’t see as helpful however. If you don’t want to talk to me about it anymore I’m not stopping you.
I think perhaps the reason I’m so focused on your approach is that like it or not, we both are representatives of the same world view. I wish people could see us for the individuals that we are, but ultimately bad approaches reflect badly upon all of us as a whole. Atheists are one of the most hated groups in the world, and I don’t want it to stay that way.
Now to respond to the things you said about your actual approach.
I fundamentally disagree that you can prove what someone thinks through technicalities such as this. I think the best you can hope for is proving that they should believe something.
Belief is highly personal and subjective, and ultimately determined by their own internal thought processes and convictions. When you add factors such as cognitive dissonance, nuance, doctrinal beliefs, and attitudes towards the historical context it becomes even more complicated. It imposes your own standards on them and removes their autonomy, which is wrong. Claiming to understand the minds of others better than they understand themselves is one of the most dishonest things it’s possible to do, and I don’t see it as any different to the Christians who say “all atheists secretly believe in God” even with the additional evidence of the bible.
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The claims of christains on youtube are just that, claims, not discussions, and they can’t even agree amongst themselves, each makes a claim of the “truth” and will not consider anything else.
And no it’s not a circular argument to say that Christians wouldn’t be chritians if they did think. It’s a fact since blind acceptance of baseless nonsense isn’t a sign of thinking.
The only reason that the history of christainity doesn’t represent the actions of Christians today is thanks to secular law that keeps them from murdering each other and others.
The passages are in their bible which they claim to be the one and only truth. Trying to claim that I shouldn’t judge them by their claims is rather amusing.
You have repeatedly claimed I am wrong and have not supported that, so much for your criticism.
I am a representative of me, nothing else. You claim yet again that my approach is “bad”, and yet have to support that claim. I dare to confront ignorant humans whose beliefs cause real harm. You may choose to do otherwise.
If you disagree, that’s great. If you can’t show why I’m wrong, you have nothing more than an opinion.
Yep, it does impose my standards on them and I’m quite glad of that since again, their claims cause real harm. And nope, it isn’t dishonest to show how someon thinks and support that with evidence. I am not claiming to be a mind reader. Anyone can claim atheists “secretly believe in god” but until they can support that claim, it’s worthless. And how the bible is evidence atheist supposedly secretly believe in god is beyond me.
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If we just stick to topics included in this comment only, you have made many claims:
1. All Christians don’t think
2. All Christians would murder if not for secular law
3. All Christians actually believe the terrible passages in the bible even if they say they don’t
4. Every Christian claims the bible to be the one and only truth
Providing the evidence to demonstrate these claims to be true requires extensive knowledge of the mind of every single Christian, I’ve not yet seen this presented. I appreciate the honesty of your arguments, and certainly would not go so far as to say they are devoid of merit, but I feel they are ultimately too specific to apply to every single individual from such a large group.
All that is needed to disprove these claims to my satisfaction, and to that of any other Christian, is one contradictory example, of which there are plenty. If I were to bring this example to you, would you just dismiss them, or would you be willing to take them at their word?
One statement you mentioned here really stood out to me: “Until they can support that claim, it’s worthless” – to tell the truth, I am convinced by this, although I would not choose to phrase it so harshly. Because you’ve not supported your claims here, I don’t believe there is much point in refuting them, showing you haven’t met the burden of proof is enough. If you have anything better I’d love to hear it, if not, I’d rather focus on the next topic.
It is indeed my opinion that your approach is mistaken. It’s fine to request that I show it to be wrong before you change it, but it’s also intended to be taken as advice. I’m recommending this to you because I’ve been an angry atheist in the past, and went out into the world talking to Christians in the same way as I’ve seen you do, and those conversations have gone very badly, and I didn’t like them. I have however had hundreds (not an exaggeration) more positive and constructive conversations using my approach. Most of these have been in real life, but many have been online too. So even if what I’m about to say does not convince you, I hope you still consider trying other approaches too, as they’re not necessarily wrong either.
I’m also not a mind reader, so I can’t collect data on what people really think internally, instead I can only present arguments. If I avoid mentioning my previous objection, I’ve thought of five more to present to you, written in no particular order:
1. In the same way that you only represent yourself, Christians only represent themselves as well. The claims of the bible are not the same as the claims of Christians. You have repeatedly said that Christians are ignorant of the claims of the bible, in this regard, their claims are obviously not synonymous. So treating it as if actually they are synonymous is not an accurate representation of the internal mind of the Christian, which means it cannot be used to reason they actually believe something they claim not to.
2. This approach does not account for cognitive dissonance, that is, the very real and well researched phenomenon that it’s possible to believe multiple contradictory claims at once. So what if one of their beliefs contradicts the other? It’s all possible and accounted for by the theory of cognitive dissonance. Showing that the bible disagrees with them does not invalidate the fact that the belief still exists in their mind.
3. The specific has more authority over the vague. For example you would not be able to use the command “Love your neighbour as yourself” to claim that the bible does not endorse the highly specific passages about slavery. In the same way, the highly vague belief of “the bible is true” has less authority over the highly specific belief that “slavery is wrong” for example.
4. I think there is another good argument when we consider ignorance. If they aren’t aware of the bible passage, don’t say they believe it, act as if they don’t believe it, tell you why it’s wrong when you bring it up, in what sense does the belief actually exist in their head? I don’t see how one could argue for its presence, no argument that you give is able to put that belief into their head if they aren’t there to hear it.
5. Our current understanding of the brain is not very thorough, and can be compared to a black box where the inputs and outputs are known, but not the internal workings. With this in mind, until technology improves, there is no way to prove 100% that someone believes something. Consistency in actions, words, as well as arguments still leaves room for error.
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Unsurprisingly, you seem to be using the same claim christians given when they try to claim their god exists, but it must be under some rock on Ceti Alpha V.
there is no need to know the mind of every christian. One simply needs to know what the bible says. If they don’t do what the bible says, by willful ignorance or attempts to invent another religion from cherry picking their book, then they aren’t christians as they themselves define that term.
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“Unsurprisingly, you seem to be using the same claim christians given when they try to claim their god exists, but it must be under some rock on Ceti Alpha V.”
I’m not sure what you’re talking about here as it’s not directed towards anything specific I have said. Is it finding you the example of a Christian that these claims don’t apply to? I’m wanting to ask if you would take them at their word first because I wouldn’t want to waste any of my Christian friend’s time, I think that’s reasonable?
I would define a Christian in a similar way to when you asked me “Ross are you a Christian aka you take jesus christ as your savior?” – I would just say Christians are people who take Jesus Christ as their saviour. We could argue over definitions all day, but ultimately I don’t think it’s up to us to decide anyway as we’re not the ones who identify by the term.
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It’s right here Ross, where you try to claim one must know everything to know something: “Providing the evidence to demonstrate these claims to be true requires extensive knowledge of the mind of every single Christian, ”
Why don’t you think someone who is outside the group can define a term used by the group? That seems rather like depending on a criminal to define what crime is.
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Hi Vel, I’m just going to respond to everything in one comment chain for the sake of making it easier to follow later.
I think it’s important to clarify my attitude towards your approach first as perhaps the term “Your approach” has become too vague after talking about it for so long. I disagree that you can use the bible to prove that a belief exists in someone’s head. So I also think that your arguments for why the belief does exist in their head are wrong and they could believe different things. So if you confront someone about a belief, and they deny having it, have never heard of it in the bible before, refute the passage etc I think you are confronting Christians about beliefs that they don’t necessarily have.
Of course we have to get our definitions of Christian right for any of this to apply. If we’re going to say “If they don’t do what the bible says, by willful ignorance or attempts to invent another religion from cherry picking their book, then they aren’t christians” based on your interpretation of the bible, then I think you have defined the term Christian out of existence and it no longer applies to anyone. It doesn’t apply to the Christians you claim to be ignorant, or the ones who selectively avoid problematic passages, and your previous statements such as “Chritians selectively avoid the problematic bits of their bible.” no longer make sense, as you’ve said Christians are the ones who don’t avoid the problematic statements.
My disagreement with you only really exists with the definition of a Christian being “someone who accepts Jesus Christ as their lord and savior” a definition I feel better represents the billions of Christians claiming to be one.
“Why don’t you think someone who is outside the group can define a term used by the group? That seems rather like depending on a criminal to define what crime is.”
Of course anyone can define a term, in each case it’s just about whether or not they should, and whether or not that should be the one that we go with. If two billion + people identify by the term, how about we don’t go with the person who is defining a term that does not apply to any of them?
The reason why I feel it’s not up to myself to define the term is mainly that I don’t want to out of respect for their autonomy. If a Christian were to say “I define an atheist to be someone who believes there is no God” then that is a definition that I would not accept for myself. I would define it as “Someone who is unconvinced that there is a God” which takes away a burden of proof I personally feel I don’t need to bear. In the same way I would want them to respect my definition, I would want to respect theirs. In cases where people vaguely know the meaning anyway, and nobody is going to change it dramatically (like a criminal might) I feel it’s fair to do this.
“It’s also notable that you somehow seem to think that you don’t’ need to refute my claims since you claim, falsely, I have not supported them.”
Do you understand the concept of the burden of proof? The idea is that the person making the claim has the responsibility of giving the evidence necessary, not the role of the other person to disprove it. Imagine someone claiming there was a flying teapot orbiting the sun. It is the role of the person making the claim to prove it, rather than the other to disprove it.
All I have said is that you haven’t met your burden of proof, not that you haven’t tried. This next argument should not be difficult to understand: the statements you have made about Christians include the word “all” which as you should know, means every single one, so we’re talking about billions here. To sustain claims containing the word “all” you must demonstrate that it is true for all of them, every single one. But your claims are about beliefs, not actions, or statements. How can you know what everyone believes? Beliefs exclusively exist in the mind of individuals, so claiming to know what beliefs everyone has in their head does indeed require knowledge of the mind of every Christian.
Arguments such as “We can see this by their actions in their need to keep believing in things that don’t exist.” are pointless because it’s clear you are unable to observe all of them, and therefore unable to substantiate the claim.
Also, if you’re just going to say that I’m wrong without giving any evidence it is no different from saying you disagree with me.
“Are you a christian?
I’ve had quite a bit of interaction with Christians, having been one myself. It is nothing new that they delude themselves.”
I used to be a Christian, I definitely did think. I remember.
So you’re not willing to take Christians at their word because you believe them to be deluded. In other words, there is no way to possibly convince you otherwise because you have a preconceived negative bias towards them before you have even met them, so that no matter what they say or do will convince you.
“Why do you accuse me of being angry, if I’m not?” I’ve accused you of being an angry atheist because you have left angry comments. I also don’t recommend describing these accusations as silly when you are saying things far more sillier.
“I’ve had plenty of positive and constructive conversations with my approach too” – very happy to hear this. Can you direct me to an example? I promise not to add anything to the comment or anything etc. or try and ruin it or anything, I’m just interested to see what this approach working looks like.
“The claims of the bible are the same as the claims of Christians, in so much they can’t agree on what their bible means, but they all insist it has to be true. I did not say it was synonymous.” – I never said you did, I was just saying that the bible can’t be used to demonstrate belief unless there is an exact overlap, otherwise it’s an inaccurate representation.
“And if it is demonstrated that their claims contradict each other, the responsibility of willful ignorance falls on the Christian. Do you argue that they can’t learn?” – I agree with this, of course they should learn, all I mean is that if they already disagree with it due to a contradictory belief, they obviously don’t believe that biblical claim.
“What is “vague” about the claim “the bible is true”?” – if you ask someone “Do you believe slavery is morally acceptable” and they have two beliefs, the first being that slavery is wrong, and the other being that the bible is true, the belief they hold about slavery is specific to the example, while the one about the bible is vague as it’s more indirect and not as helpful for answering the question.
“We know quite a bit about the internal workings of the brain, and consistency seems to leave no room for error. Do you have an example of what you are claiming?”
I’ll add that our understanding is also getting better and better, so I hope what I’m about to say isn’t always going to be true. The best summary I think I can find (that also seems trustworthy) is Tong F, Pratte MS. Decoding patterns of human brain activity where they explain the state of the art of techniques for what we can know about the brain. These things are brilliant, but they are a massive distance from knowing the exact thought someone has in their mind based on observation. They are stuff like finding which noun (out of two) someone is thinking of, or what type of word the individual is thinking of.
Consistency does not account for those who act fully in accordance with the belief, say that they believe it, but internally disagree. An example is someone who believes murder is acceptable, but don’t do it because they don’t want to be punished, and don’t say it because they don’t want others to find out.
Also, if we were to say that consistency is so reliable, then you should be convinced by the Christians who act like they don’t believe the things you’re claiming they do. They are consistent as well.
There were some things that I couldn’t really fit into the rest of the discussion, so have just put them below.
“This bible says to kill those who don’t’ agree with you. What else other than secular law is standing against this cult’s nonsense?” – The fact that Christians interpret this in ways in which they are not told to kill those who don’t agree with you. The claim “all Christians would murder if not for secular law” is a psychological question. Even if they believed they were commanded to do this, whether or not they would follow up on this needs to be answered from a psychological perspective.
When I am talking about appreciating your honesty I am just referring to the fact that many people are unwilling to share and argue for their controversial opinions due to fear of negative perception, but not you, so I appreciate that.
“Christians are stuck with the terrible passages in their bible, even though they try to ignore them. They don’t magically vanish.” agreed.
“It’s not “harsh” to tell the truth, a truth that you evidently agree with.” – I wasn’t telling you how to phrase it, just explaining that if I were to use this point with another, I would not personally phrase it this way myself.
“Since you have nothing but an opinion, why would I take it as advice, Ross?” – You don’t have to take it as advice, I’m just explaining that this is partially the spirit in which I’m talking to you with.
“I did not say your approach was wrong.” agreed.
“There is no excuse for ignorance when these people claim that their bible is true and that everyone should follow it as a handbook for existence.” agreed.
I hadn’t expected this discussion to grow so large, I probably wouldn’t have introduced so much extra if I knew you were planning to also reply to the same comment again so apologies for that. These questions of how we can know the thoughts of individuals are very interesting to me so I just want to explore it and answer these objections as fully as I can.
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Until you support your claims, Ross, I don’t care what you disagree about. I don’t allow christains to get away with their willful ignorance when it comes to their cult.
Christians can’t even agree amongst themselves about what Christian is, so I simply take them at their word which means a Christian is someone who claims that the bible is correct and that they worship the entities claimed to exist within. They are stuck with their bible, no matter how they, and you, try to avoid that problem.
I’m sure you don’t like having a burden of proof to bear and atheists have no burden of proof to show that gods don’t exist. It is the theist who has made the positive claim, and thus has the burden of proof. I don’t need to respect someone who makes up nonsense to avoid being responsible for what they claim as the “truth”. Christians, *all* of them, have one source for their nonsense, the bible. Thus they are held responsible to know what it says.
And again, like Christians, you find it necessary to claim I am angry when I disagree with you. I’m not. It’s nothing unusual to see this happening again. And hmm, now you claim I’ve not done something and you need evidence, just like how I require the same thing from christains. You may come to my blog and see how I’ve discussed things with Christians. Again, I suspect you’ll try to falsely claim I’m angry when I am not. I am direct, I am blunt, but I am not angry. You are welcome to comment if you wish. Here’s a couple of links: https://clubschadenfreude.com/2022/05/02/not-so-polite-dinner-conversation-please-welcome-alex-a-christian-who-has-asked-to-debate-me/
You can see just how christains react to a positive and constructive conversation. These Christians you claim that are so thoughtful etc aren’t.
“And if it is demonstrated that their claims contradict each other, the responsibility of willful ignorance falls on the Christian. Do you argue that they can’t learn?” – I agree with this, of course they should learn, all I mean is that if they already disagree with it due to a contradictory belief, they obviously don’t believe that biblical claim.
There is nothing indirect asking someone, who has claimed, by being a Christian, that the bible is true, and asking them if they agree that slavery is fine. It is quite helpful in answering the question since they must either believe one thing or the other: if the bible is true, then slavery is fine per their beliefs.
People can now type by thinking, so it seems your claim of not knowing what someone is thinking is false.
I know that christains are inconsistent, that’s my point. They proclaim belief in their bible, all of it, and turn around and claim that they are ignorant of it ,they don’t agree with some of it, etc. It’s nothing more than compartmentalization. Yep, Christians interpret things as is convenient.
I don’t find my position “negative” at all or “controversial”.
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Hi Vel,
I’ve already supported these claims extensively so I’m feeling frustrated that there hasn’t been much engagement with them. Assertions about Christians including the word “all” require knowledge you don’t have access to, this should be enough. When I’m discussing, I’m not talking about only the people you have typed to, but all Christians.
Regarding the other points about not letting them get away with their ignorance, being stuck with the bible, asking them what they believe, and pointing out problems – these are not my disagreements. This is what I was trying to say during my clarification in the previous comment.
The first demonstration of the burden of proof was the flying teapot, which is not relevant to religion at all, it’s not intended to be exclusively for theists but anyone making a positive claim. An example of a positive claim is “All Christians would murder if not for the law” or “All Christians don’t think.”
By the way, how do you think these statements are not negative or controversial? These are all extremely negative opinions towards Christians, and I think would not be taken very well by both Christians and moderates. This is what I meant in the previous comment in case you thought I was talking about something else.
Thanks for sharing your posts, I’ve had a look through them. You had a very long conversation with Alexander so I couldn’t read all of it, but it seemed quite productive until the end where he felt bullied and attacked. In the second one do you mean the conversation with SOM? Either way, just one conversation is enough to show what you mean.
I am willing to take your word that you aren’t angry as you write these comments, and that it just comes across that way due to directness/bluntness and your attitude.
Thanks for your thoughts. Although we disagree, I’m happy to be discussing these things.
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True doesn’t mean negative. Why would I care if the truth isn’t’ taken well by Christians and “moderates” whatever those may be in your definition?
Ross you seem to have little more than attacks against myself in this post with your claims about my supposed attitude, etc.
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I think the fact that you believe it to be true despite the lack of evidence is why it’s so negative. There has been no evidence presented from psychology that all Christians would murder if not for the law, and we’ve already established that the bible does not represent the internal mind of the Christian adequately enough to reason what they believe from it, only what they should believe, have to deal with, should not be ignorant of etc. Saying that I’ve only attacked you personally requires ignoring the many arguments I’ve given.
I don’t think biases are helpful for determining truth as it’s starting with your answer and using evidence to determine the conclusion, poorly informing all aspects of the consideration process. It shows bias to have already reached a conclusion about an individual before you have met them, and to justify it by saying that they’re deluded, again, despite not knowing them. Pointing that out should not be considered a personal attack.
I asked why you didn’t think these claims were controversial, I already knew that you didn’t care if the claims wouldn’t be taken well.
I see why you felt I was attacking your attitude. This was in regard to your opening few comments. After this, you seemed to change quite a lot, which was great, this was when I said the following:
“I think you’re probably not rude and terrible in general, you care about being seen as a good person. As such, I’ve noticed you haven’t been accusing what I’ve said as nonsense (which is just a rude way of saying I disagree with you), and stopped being as condescending. You were calling me ‘dear’ as if I was incapable of rational thought only a few comments ago so I congratulate you on your improvement.”
Thanks for continuing to talk to me in the same, more positive way.
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Unsurprisingly, there is no lack of evidence. It’s a shame you keep repeating this false claim.
You claim I have biases, and yet have to show that this is true. You keep claiming we can’t know what Christians believe when they all claim they believe in the bible. That is not my claim but theirs. There is nothing wrong about knowing what christains are and knowing how they will behave. That is not bias, it is experience.
And curious how I’ve not changed, but nice attempt at a rather weird version of gaslighting. I didn’t use the word “dear” since I didn’t need it. But with this pretentious nonsense of “congratulating” me, I see I was mistaken.
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As I’ve said, the burden of proof is on you, and not me when you claim “All Christians would murder if not for the law” you have not even tried to support evidence for this from a psychological perspective. I invite you to do so.
I’ve already refuted the second paragraph many times so to insist on saying it again while not responding to the arguments I’ve already given makes me feel this discussion has stopped being valuable, and we’re just going in circles. It seems like a good idea to bring this conversation to a close unless you want to talk about another specific point.
In light of your final paragraph, I suppose I have no choice but to take back what I said previously.
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And I’ve given evidence.
Christians believe in a bible that says that they should murder people of other religions
Christians did this before secular was established.
Therefore, secular law is the reason that christians stopped doing this and if secular law were removed, we would go back to what Christians did since their bible tells them to do so.
Psychology has nothing to do with this.
What you’ve said previously was a set of false claims trying to pretend you’ve influenced by actions. You aren’t that good, dear.
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Back to being rude are we? At this point I’d much rather our comments chain act as my defence. Can we get back to the arguments?
Speaking of which, this is an argument for “All Christians would murder if not for the law” so I will look at it in this regard.
“Christians believe in a bible that says that they should murder people of other religions”
This is two premises.
1. Christians believe the bible is true
2. The bible says to murder people of other religions
I don’t really disagree with premise 1. I have seen sects such as LDS which says the bible has been corrupted, but happy to grant it anyway for the sake of argument to the extent that Christians in general would agree with the statement ‘the bible is true’.
As for the second one, the bible verse in question is required here to establish the premise.
But it doesn’t really matter what the bible actually says, what matters is what Christians believe it says. If Christians don’t believe premise 2, then it’s impossible for them to obey it, as they wouldn’t know the command exists. My experience (and I’m almost certain yours too) shows Christians don’t believe the bible says this, so a citation would be needed to show that all Christians actually believe this about the bible. You’re free to post links as long as they’re relevant. The comment might get flagged as spam but if it does I’ll just unblock it.
“Christians did this before secular was established.”
The claim is all Christians, not some Christians, so this point is irrelevant. If in the past some Christians did not murder then there is no reason to think the opposite would be true today.
“Therefore, secular law is the reason that christians stopped doing this”
Citation needed, both to show this is true and to show causation. Correlation is not causation. It could quite easily have come around because they believed these actions were wrong and wanted to make a system where they’d be held accountable etc.
Also I don’t really know what time period you mean by “before secular was established” – can you give an event/time period?
“Psychology has nothing to do with this.” – Very much the complete opposite. The decision to murder occurs within the mind of an individual. If the bible tells someone to murder, there is no way of knowing whether or not they will follow through with it, you need to use psychology. This is no better than arguing that every individual would murder if someone they believed and trusted told them to.
Ultimately this argument fails because premise two is a non sequitur, even if true, the conclusion does not follow.
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it’s great when poor Ross has to lie about me yet again.
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Saying that I’m lying about you being rude, while simultaneously being rude to me. Surely you’re better than this?
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And here we go with more false claims from you.
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It’s notable that I have not been rude, and I have gone back to anything. It’s rather amusing since you tried to convince yourself that somehow you “changed” me, and that wasn’t true.
I find it great that you say that you have no disagreement with the fact that Christians claim the bible is true. Facts don’t care. And yes, some versions of this cult claim that parts of it has been corrupted, but they know the “truth”. It’s also rather fun to see you claim the bible doesn’t say to murder people of other religions when it does.
It’s notable you have no idea what the bible says Ross, just like so many Christians. It doesn’t matter what Christians believe it says if they make the blanket claim the bible is true and they must do that since it is the sole source of their religion. Willful ignorance doesn’t make these Christians less culpable.
“Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. “The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him.” (Deuteronomy 13:13-19)”
“So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved. When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (Romans 1:24-32)”
“4 He said to the bystanders, “Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.” 25 (And they said to him, “Lord, he has ten pounds!”) 26 “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.”’” Luke 19
Yep, the claim is all Christians, and again, my point stands. That vanishingly few Christians murder other theists today, there must be a reason. There is “secular law” that doesn’t allow for the special treatment of theists. If you think there is another cause, then show it. In this case causation is causation since religions have continually lost power when it comes to law.
Again, still no evidence that Christians find their bible wrong. Not one rebukes their god for what it commands (see above).
The time frame is during the enlightenment and after.
The decision to murder is based on what the person is taught, and if a cult teaches this and indoctrinates its members, then it is about the religion. We see that people do murder if some they believed and trusted told them to, with Christianity during the various religious wars, the pogroms against the jews and in nazi Germany.
Thus both premises hold true.
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This is dumb. I don’t know how you have convinced yourself that I think this but I’ll let the comments stand as my defence. Any more of this ridiculouslessness is just going to be ignored. It’s so hypocritical to be rude to me while still insisting that you aren’t rude.
None of these passages are talking about murdering people from different religions. The first is murdering people who try and convert Christians, the verse in Romans is about homosexuals, and the passage from Luke is from a parable, the person commanding this is not God but the man described as severe and unliked. But yes, murder is here.
You haven’t even shown correlation, nevermind causation so how about you show that first?
You have said that the Christians you talk to about this find excuses to get out of this or reasons why it doesn’t apply to them, so I just use that as my evidence.
Ok, so anyone would murder if their parents told them to, not a single German rebelled against Hitler, people are single dimensioned machines who do what they’re told. Don’t be so ridiculous.
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and more false claims from you. How nice. It’s great how you repeat the lies from christians trying to defend their bible from being the genocidal and ignorant thing it is.
Unsurprisngly, all of those passages are about murdering people from other religions. I do love how you find that people who try to convert Christians (actually jews since that was from the OT) aren’t from other religions. The nonsense from Romans 1 is about anyone who dares not worship this imaginary god, and is not only about homosexuals. Here’s the bit before the quote I gave: “8 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; 21 for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools; 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.” Romans 1
So you fail again. The verses in luke is indeed from a parable, and in the parable the nobleman is Jesus. So do tell what that part about murdering non-christians “really” means.
You either terribly ignorant or a terrible apologist for this nonsense.
Curious how the vast majority of german christains did not rebel against hitler and all believe that jews are responsible for the supposed death of this messiah. That’s what their bible says is the truth. Again, *all* christians are stuck with that, no matter what excuses they make.
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Not really actually. I’m just pointing out that while these passages are bad, they do not say what you think they do. It shouldn’t be hard to understand.
The story says to murder those who try and convert Jews, not a command to kill everyone of a different religion unquestionably.
The reason why they were said to deserve murder was because of the homosexual acts, not because they disagreed with the religion, I think it’s evidenced quite well that God does not turn all non-believers gay. If he did, that would be pretty good evidence of his existence, or at least much better than anything I’ve seen so far.
The fact that you think Jesus is the severe ruler is actually laughable, you fail with such confidence.
I’m not even saying this debunks your argument, just pointing out that the commanent to murder every individual of a different religion is not there, although there are commandments to murder in other circumstances. I definitely can’t disagree here.
I see there has also been a failure to provide evidence of correlation between the enlightenment and a lack of murder. Without that you can’t even argue that a correlation exists, and the claim can’t be supported.
To remind you, the claim we’re talking about is ‘all Christians would murder if not for secular law’ so the fact that you admit that some Germans did rebel against Hitler just proves my point.
Christians are stuck with the bad things in their bible, I’ve never disagreed with this.
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Yep, doubling down on false claims. Nothing new. Unsurprisngly, the bible does have one constant through it, kill non-believers.
Curious how religious wars between catholics and protestants ground to a stop with the enlightenment. No more crusades, no more 30 years war, no more christians burning each other at the stake., and yes, that was still done in the elizabethan period.
again vanishingly few. and Nazis were christians.
I do love how you try to lie about the parable of the minas when even christians admit that the nobleman is jesus.
you also fail with Romans 1 since again it says that idolators, etc etc etc deserve death.
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Oh dear. Accusing me of exactly what your doing. Stop doubling down on your false claims, this is ridiculous.
You still need a source for correlation, this is just random examples.
Vanishingly few? So not all. That’s all I care about. Sounds like I’ve convinced you.
Why do you accuse me of lying? Seriously, the only one lying about this is you. This is why I think it’s ridiculous, everything you’ve done is something you have accused me of. Read Romans 1 entirely, it’s not my job to explain the bible to you.
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And more false claims. Sigh. They aren’t random samples at all but nice try. So, you tell me, dear, why did religous wars stop circa the enlightenment? What’s your cause?
and yep, all you have are vanishingly few german christians who did nothign to rebel. where were the attacks on concentration camps?
I’ve already explained what I consider a lie of yours. I’ve read Romans 1, I’ve read the entire bible, and christian commentary, and what it says is not what you claim.
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Oh dear, more hypocrocy, if you hate false claims so much, stop saying them. I’m not forcing you. To make a point you need evidence. Where is your evidence that religious war stopped after the enlightenment? I’m very unconvinced this is the case.
Why is this in any way relevant to the statement ‘all Christians would murder if not for secular law’ when not all Christians are involved in murder during war.
Can you stop double downing on this? You’ve already admitted that not every German followed Hitler. Have you never heard of Schindler? He was German, and a pretty good example of active rebellion if that’s really what you really need to convince you.
I’ve not lied to you. A lie is a deliberately false statement. What did I say that was deliberately false?
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And still no evidence for your claims. IF you wish to claim religious wars continued, what are those wars?
Schindler was a complex character and it seems wasn’t a notable christian. You might want to read the wikipedia entry on him.
what did you say that was deliberately false?
this: “I do love how you try to lie about the parable of the minas when even christians admit that the nobleman is jesus.”
Even christians know that jesus is the nobleman who goes away and then returns. You have nothing to support your claims.
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I’m not the one making the claim, you are. To make claims you need evidence, where is it? If it’s true you should be able to provide a source that looks at the history of war. The more you fail to provide a source the more it looks like you have nothing, I did ask for this a long time ago. You need this at the very least to support your argument.
How is that thing about the parable deliberately false? It’s what I believe. You think I already agree with you but I’m just pretending? That’s very silly.
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Again, you claim I’m wrong. Prove it. Show religions wars happening after the enlightment. Funny how you can’t.
The parable is known to christians to be about christ. where you pulled the nobleman isn’t, is beyond me. Nothing supports that interpretation.
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If you’re going to make the claim “All Christians would murder if not for secular law” you better have your sources. I ask for it and you have a breakdown. Good argument. You’re the one making the claim not me. I thought you understood the concept of the burden of proof but clearly not. If you’re happy to drop the claim we can talk about it normally like you seem to want to.
You haven’t explained the relevance of this statistic about wars to your claim, since not everyone’s role is to murder during war. Since it’s not really relevant, I don’t get the point. Maybe once that’s explained the many religious wars that have happened since the enlightenment would actually become relevant.
Funny how in this case you take some Christian interpretation of scripture when it aligns with your narrative, but reject it when it doesn’t, for example in regards to murdering people of other religions. I’ve just read the text, that’s where my interpretation has come from. The passage does not say that Jesus is the nobleman. I can see how someone might see it paralleling or reflecting Jesus, but the interpretation that we should treat everything he has said as if it came out of Jesus’ own mouth looks like way too much of a stretch to me.
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Ross, you consistently fail to support your claims. It’s hilarious how you try to make up nonsense about the parable of the minas. You just don’t want to admit that the character of jesus is a vicious failure.
it’s notable how you have no idea what the burden of proof is. Still no evidence of religious wars post enlightenment as there were before. You cannot show any lack of causation or correlation.
do list the supposed “Many religious wars that have happened since the enlightenment” that you claim have happened.
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I think we’re done here. You’re not willing to explain why any of this is relevant to the claim ‘All Christians would murder if not for secular law’ when not all Christians would be involved in murder during war. I don’t see what the point of this is as even if it were true, it’s not relevant to the claim.
I’d much rather you find a source because you would find out on your own the list of wars then change your mind, if I were to tell you you would probably find some way to dismiss it, like saying it’s not 100% religious, but you can say that about pretty much all religious wars.
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Still waiting for your evidence to show I’m wrong.
yep, the typical excuses for why you can’t support your own claims. You can give the source and the list of these wars you claim happened. you are quite a fraud, dear, and trying to blame me won’t work.
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And your breakdown continues. You can’t even explain why this is relevant to your claim. I’m not making any claims, so don’t expect evidence for things that I’m not claiming. Do you claim that all Christians would murder if not for secular law. Yes or no? I’m starting to think you’d rather take it back than argue for it.
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nothing like a false claim added to armchair psychoanalysis.
I’ve said as much. And you still have nothing to support your claims.
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What claim am I making exactly? Everything I’ve been saying is in reaction to your claim. This is what the burden of proof is, the one making the claim needs to provide the evidence. It’s why saying you can’t prove God doesn’t exist isn’t good enough, and why you aren’t good enough now. If you stand by the claim, support it, otherwise it’s pointless, and I’m not interested.
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I’ve supported it. And you’ve tried to claim I’ve had some “breakdown”. Nice of you not to support that. Bye, dear, it’s been amusing.
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Ok. Your breakdown refers to asking for a source, and all you give me is excuses and say that because I haven’t disproved your claim, I should accept it. It’s not a diagnosis if that’s what you thought I was saying.
Amusing isn’t the right word. But there isn’t much I can say either. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, so that’s all I can really do. Goodbye Vel.
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and more lies about breakdowns. How nice.
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There’s no need for parting shots, I’d say just let the comments section stand as your defence at this point. I’m guessing we both agree this conversation has gone on for way too long.
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All Christians don’t think. We can see this by their actions in their need to keep believing in things that don’t exist.
Christians claim that their bible is the “truth”. This bible says to kill those who don’t’ agree with you. What else other than secular law is standing against this cult’s nonsense?
Christians are stuck with the terrible passages in their bible, even though they try to ignore them. They don’t magically vanish.
And yep, calling themselves Christians they claim that the bible is the one and only truth. That’s what believing in the nonsense of christ requires.
As I’ve already stated, one doesn’t need to know the entire universe to know how Christians behave. Considering how you claim I’m wrong, it seems rather unbelievable that you “appreciate the honesty” of my arguments.
“All that is needed to disprove these claims to my satisfaction, and to that of any other Christian, is one contradictory example, of which there are plenty.”
Are you a christian?
I’ve had quite a bit of interaction with Christians, having been one myself. It is nothing new that they delude themselves.
It’s not “harsh” to tell the truth, a truth that you evidently agree with. Again, if a claim is not supported it is worthless. This would apply to Christian claims, flat earther claims, etc. It’s also notable that you somehow seem to think that you don’t’ need to refute my claims since you claim, falsely, I have not supported them.
Since you have nothing but an opinion, why would I take it as advice, Ross? You claim to have been an “angry atheist” in the past, which accuses me of being an “angry atheist” now. Why do you accuse me of being angry, if I’m not? I’ve had plenty of positive and constructive conversations with my approach too, and it seems you are intent on making accusations about me that are false.
I did not say your approach was wrong. And why would I try something when what I have works?
You indeed seem to be claiming to be a mind reader with your silly “angry atheist” accusations.
Christians don’t’ only represent themselves. They are part of a defined group. And your claims that how dare I differ from you seems to indicate you also think atheists are a defined group, since you claim my actions reflect on you.
The claims of the bible are the same as the claims of Christians, in so much they can’t agree on what their bible means, but they all insist it has to be true. I did not say it was synonymous.
Yep, cognitive dissonance exists. And if it is demonstrated that their claims contradict each other, the responsibility of willful ignorance falls on the Christian. Do you argue that they can’t learn?
What is “vague” about the claim “the bible is true”?
There is no excuse for ignorance when these people claim that their bible is true and that everyone should follow it as a handbook for existence.
We know quite a bit about the internal workings of the brain, and consistency seems to leave no room for error. Do you have an example of what you are claiming?
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Ross are you a Christian aka you take jesus christ as your savior? Yes or no?
and if so, what version?
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I am not a Christian, I do not take Jesus christ as my saviour
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good,
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Haha
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Ross, It is obvious that human beings understand good and evil, beautiful and ugly, just and unjust, moral and immoral, etc.
The nature of God, and this is from Aristotle, not the Bible, is that he is infinite. Therefore, on the continuum that spans from evil to good, God is infinitely good, infinitely beautiful, infinitely just and infinitely moral. That is the nature of God. The nature of God is a self-evident given.
So if you read in the Bible that God ordered the elimination of this tribe or that tribe it is because this tribe or that tribe was irredeemably evil. We can figure this out because we understand the self-evident nature of God: he is infinitely good, infinitely beautiful, infinitely just and infinitely moral.
Atheists construct their arguments against God because they reject the self-evident given: God’s nature. Once you do that, you create God in your own image and proceed from there.
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So you consider Yahweh as the giver of life perfectly within his right to take it?
But why in the case of the Midianites did he not simply wipe them out himself instead of subjecting the Israelite soldiers to committing Genocide?
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Ark, You are asking a question for which, only God has the answer.
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Aah… so once again you become the wheedling disingenious indoctrinated arsehat for Yahweh
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Ark, You asked a question about God’s intentions. Only God knows his own intentions.
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You have already made assertions about your god, Yahweh, and now you are saying only Yahweh knows his own intentions?
Remind us all again when exactly did you become Yahweh’s personal representative ?
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Ark, I haven’t asserted anything about, “my god, Yahweh.” That is just you blubbering like a moron. Take ahold of your ears and pull your head out of your ass, you stupid dip shit.
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“God is infinitely good, infinitely beautiful, infinitely just and infinitely moral. That is the nature of God. The nature of God is a self-evident given. ”
Your words.
That is an assertion.
So, again, as you seem clued on your god, Yahweh why didn’t he wipe out Midianites himself?
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Ark, Truth is an assertion. I assert the truth.
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Some people often make unfounded idiotic assertions.
As an indoctrinated Catholic, you do it all the time as evidenced by your comments on this blog ( and many others including your own)
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Ark, It is the business of dialogue to assert the truth.
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And once again, see my previous reply.
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Hi SOM,
I won’t go over the same ground you’ve already talked about. I will however say that asserting the truth is not the business of dialogue. Assertions, by definition, lack the evidence required to justify their truth, so they are very poor statements to use for persuasion. Better dialogue requires evidence, justification, good arguments etc.
An example of this would be if I replied to you saying “God is not infinite” – not very convincing is it?
This is the main thing I want to focus on:
“So if you read in the Bible that God ordered the elimination of this tribe or that tribe it is because this tribe or that tribe was irredeemably evil.”
This is what I mean when I say that objective morality is more terrifying. God can order you to do absolutely anything, and it’s morally correct.
You could be halfway through arguing why we should look after and protect children, then receive a message from God to kill a child, and you have to do it, otherwise you’re immoral. That should terrify you.
We are both agreed that human beings can understand good and evil etc. so this should be the kind of thing that disgusts everyone.
Were it true that God exists and he is infinitely good, I don’t see the link between this deity and the Christian one. Why should we think that these two beings are the same?
Rather, this bible story would be amazing evidence that Yahweh is not the infinitely good God, instead of being evidence that this tribe is irredeemably evil. The mistake made here is starting with the conclusion, and using it to justify the claim.
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Ross, Proper assertions are self-evident truths. I have made proper assertions.
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SOM, If just yourself, or your in-group think something is a self-evident truth, it’s not a self-evident truth. Self-evident truths are universally accepted.
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Ross, Self-evident truths are objectives truths and are thus, true for everyone.
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You still don’t get it SOM. Objective truth is not the same as self-evident truth. Something can be true without being self-evident. If only yourself or your in-group think something is true, it is not self-evident. That doesn’t mean it’s definitely wrong, just that it needs justification when communicating with others.
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Ross, Self evident truth by definition is objective truth. Somehow, some way, you have been misinformed.
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You still don’t get it SOM. The statement ‘water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level’ is objectively true, but not self-evident to everyone. A statement such as ‘a triangle has three sides’ is objectively true, and self-evident because it’s universally accepted not just by yourself and your in-group, but by everyone. I am simply emphasising this distinction
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Ross, You are using a logical fallacy commonly called comparing apples and oranges. You are using specific examples whereas I am using universal examples.
To make sense out of the world, we need to first understand the universal nature of its fundamental principles.
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I recommend that before you go out into the world trying to make sense of it to learn the difference between self-evident objective truth and objective truth. This is not a difficult concept to understand.
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Ross, After being refuted because you used a logical fallacy, you blithely change the subject. This is typical of atheists.
Further, I teach my physics and biology students the difference between self-evident truth, objective truths and facts and figures, at the beginning of every academic year.
I have explained to you what self-evident truth is. Implicit in my comments is the meaning objective truth. I will break it down for you in two sentences.
Self-evident truth is what we can figure out on our own using common sense and logic. Objective truth can only come from God.
Water boils at 212 F and freezes at 32 F on planet Earth at sea level, are facts. Facts are facts because they are true, not because they are the truth.
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SOM, it’s not a logical fallacy, I compared two things that were exactly the same.
Objective truth is not the same as self-evident truth, that is all I’ve been trying to say, and nothing else you’ve said is anything I care about. I won’t explain it again, the fact that I’ve already needed to explain it once is humiliating for you.
Don’t say general statements like “This is typical of atheists” it’s just silly and rude. If you want to talk about blithely changing the subject how about completely ignoring everything I said in my comment about morality, and everything I said about physics in our last discussion. Don’t be a hypocrite.
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Ross, Asked and answered. For the atheist, personal opinion is necessary objective truth. That is, you assume the position of God and determine what is true or false.
Therefore, you are immune to logic, common sense and 2500 years of Western thought.
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How about you just ask me rather than assume things that are obviously wrong?
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Ross, All you are able to express is personal opinion which you ordain to be true.
In reality you are an arrogant idiot who is a complete waste of time. I hereby ban myself from your blog.
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Goodbye SOM, I hope you can reflect on this and become a better communicator.
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He gets it, believe me. Being an asinine jerk is his ground state of being.
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He’s a troll then? I wasn’t trying to be a jerk either, rather I felt like I was talking to him in the same way he talks to others. Normally I want to just have nice, friendly and constructive conversations, but it’s not very easy to do.
It’s just I felt we weren’t going to make any progress whatsoever if we couldn’t agree on this. It’s probably therefore for the best he’s banned himself from my blog, conversations about the role of assertions are not what I had in mind when I wrote this haha
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