Does life have value?

Originally posted by chaney3
You're a tough guy now?

Is there a hell?
You don't believe in what sonship does, so is there any hell at all?

I've no idea whether there is a hell, but I don't accept that there is one where people are supernaturally kept alive and tortured for eternity by the god who loved them so much he died for them.

Of course you already know this but are so unimaginative and bereft of biblical knowledge that you have to resort to drawing attention to yourself by regurgitation other people's ideas and arguments.

Originally posted by divegeester
I've no idea whether there is a hell, but I don't accept that there is one where people are supernaturally kept alive and tortured for eternity by the god who loved them so much he died for them.

Of course you already know this but are so unimaginative and bereft of biblical knowledge that you have to resort to drawing attention to yourself by regurgitation other people's ideas and arguments.

No, I did NOT know that. I did not realize that you were rejecting what's taught in the Bible. Hell is in the Bible.

So then it should follow that you don't know if there's a heaven.

Originally posted by divegeester

You've accused fmf of causing hundreds of people in here to go to hell, and I've counter accused you of wasting your time in here while you are causing hundreds of people to go to hell who could be hearing your salvation ministry. Instead you are in here exchanging mammoth 2 foot long self-serving post with LemonJelly.

Quote the post in which you say I made this accusation.

I recall years ago, probably in response to his frivolous dismissal of the importance of the gospel, I said something sobering that it is possible he could be influencing some towards being lost.

I recall that this was said in a way of warning.
This is not the same as a definite accusation that I had knowledge that ANYONE was responsible for someone disbelieving.

I don't think you were participating in this Forum then. So if you got his take on the discussion, I would suspect you got his exaggerated spin.

What you could do is look also at the posts of what FMF said to me on the way up to that post.

Your version of Jesus is going to burn hundreds more people in hell, who would have escaped, because you are in here pontificating.

Which line of criticism is going to be your favorite today, seeing you like to do the circuit ?

1.) sonship plagiarizes.
2.) No one reads sonship's long posts (except you of course).
3.) sonship is not running hysterically through the street yelling "Fire! Fire!" every waking moment as someone accepting Christ's words should.

Originally posted by sonship
Which line of criticism is going to be your favorite today, seeing you like to do the circuit ?

The bottom line is, why are you in here wasting your time writing posts two feet in length when you should be it evangelising. I say this because of what you believe, not out of any dislike for you.

Originally posted by divegeester
The bottom line is, why are you in here wasting your time writing posts two feet in length when you should be it evangelising. I say this because of what you believe, not out of any dislike for you.

#3

Originally posted by sonship
[quote] What's a good example of this schizophrenia in action? Well, theists often take things as intrinsically valuable in their everyday affairs on the basis of reasons that have absolutely nothing - zero - to do with the subject of God; and yet, when pressed about it, these same theists will claim that such value is merely contingent on God-related consid ...[text shortened]... ry to prove my reasons sophomoric.
Do you have a non-schizophrenic way of considering this ?

You noticed that I was not satisfied with my Mono Lisa example.

No. What I noticed is that you were quite satisfied with the example and the point you made. It made clear sense to you. But, then, when I brought the discussion back to the subject of God and applied the very same point you had just made, suddenly you just "don’t really get it" anymore. Half of you understands the point just fine and is satisfied with it; and the other half just cannot grapple when natural implications of it are applied against your cherished theological commitments.

This argumentative schizophrenia is nothing new from you. It happens time and time again. For example, here was a particularly egregious occurrence, concerning your argument that an atheist cannot have "objective" foundations for morals. On the contrary, I took your very own points and showed clearly how they actually entail just the opposite: that an atheist can have "objective" foundations according to your own lights and according to your very own usage of the term. Of course you played dumb when confronted with this, saying you just "cannot see" how that follows:

Thread 158249

Regarding the rest, you apparently still don't get it. Oh well. My responsibility to ensure you understand the point I am making only extends so far. I have already explained in clear language what my argument is and in just what sense I was intending 'schizophrenia' in the current context. Go read the Stocker essay if you're still wondering. In Stocker's phraseology, the schizophrenia manifests when one "cannot embody their reason in their motive" – that is, when one's theoretical justification for their actions cannot be embodied in the practical reasons that actually motivate them in their everyday affairs. And you cannot embody the theory that all human value is merely contingent on our origins from God into reasons that motivate genuine prosocial concern for humans as ends in themselves (such as love, compassion, friendship, etc). You cannot harmonize your theories that human value is merely contingent on God-considerations with reason-giving awareness of intrinsic human value. Thus, to the extent that you engage in those prosocial activities that affirm human value, you fail to affirm your theory. Kind of like how to the extent that you take the Mona Lisa to be inherently beautiful, you fail to affirm any theory that entails its beauty is merely contingent on its etiological particulars. Of course, somehow you will likely still fail to reconcile in your mind these two particular examples of the same general point. Again: oh well.

I also see that you are content to keep insinuating that I am "biased against theism" rather than substantively addressing my arguments. Perhaps you missed the memo that the OP was explicitly asking about puzzling evaluative statements made by theists (more specifically, by Christians)? Perhaps you failed to understand that I was defending those theists from the idea that such statements should be taken to indicate that such theists devalue human life to any greater extent than their atheist counterparts who do not make such puzzling claims? My argument has been clear: such statements do not indicate any actual character flaws when it comes to value ascription; such theists probably do not exhibit failure to value human life in practice any more than anyone else, but rather just sometimes fail to square their practice and their theory. That's far more forgivable, isn't it? And perhaps you failed to notice where I already clearly explained and showed that my usage of 'schizophrenia' is not specific to theists? If you do not see how such usage could be oriented also towards atheists, then you have major comprehension problems. Again, read the Stocker essay. He gives good examples, and those examples are silent on the theism/atheism divide.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Who says what has value? You like the picture another may not, but what if what we value really reveals us for what we are?

I'm not sure what you are asking. 😕

Originally posted by KellyJay...

kelly, people was believing in stuff long before christians showed up.

Originally posted by apathist
kelly, people was believing in stuff long before christians showed up.

They believe stuff during the time Christians showed up, and afterwards too. We are
creatures of faith, a lot of what we "know" is taken on faith.

Originally posted by LemonJello
I'm not sure what you are asking. 😕

When we look at something and assign a value, it doesn't do anything, to the thing we are
looking at. It remains as is no matter if we looked at it or not. We on the other hand have
placed a value upon something. It either has a great deal of value to us, none at all, or
some place in the middle. This could cause us to act out in different ways, and depending
on what it is, what has really occurred is that we show what we are made of. We could
show we think little of people, people of X, whatever that X is, or some item we could go
into debt for, or save for, or buy with what we have, some could steal, and do other
things, for what they value.

So the assigning of value reveals in us what we are really made of not the things are
looking at.

I'm not really asking anything, that was just a thought as I started reading what you two
were talking about, and this more than likely has nothing to do with what you were saying.
🙂