Originally posted by sonhouse
What I have is common courtesy, if I see a woman getting raped, I am at the perp with a baseball bat or anything else I can scrounge up, I don't need a moralistic roadmap man made for the express purpose of controlling men and suppressing women.
I also don't do a heaven calculation when I see something that needs doing for someone, like 'If I do this th ...[text shortened]... ght to the death over religion is another proof mankind invented the entire god thing.
What I have is common courtesy, if I see a woman getting raped, I am at the perp with a baseball bat or anything else I can scrounge up, I don't need a moralistic roadmap man made for the express purpose of controlling men and suppressing women.
But does this have any more weight than you preference for one soft drink over another ?
The man who believes women should be used, if not for rape, then for varied and frequent fornication with no regard for marriage commitment, is his preference any morally deficient compared to your own ? He has his taste, you have yours.
From what universal standard do you derive your sense of moral rightness.
I also don't do a heaven calculation when I see something that needs doing for someone, like 'If I do this thing, god will think I am good and will let me into heaven'.
You still haven't shown me that your sense of good doing is not simply your taste, like that for this rock group as opposed to that rock group.
I don't EVER think something like that when I help someone. I see only the immediate need, don't have to look any further than that.
Is your taste absolute ? Why isn't his taste to take selfish advantage absolute ?
The person who sees an immediate apportunity to take advantage of such a person instead, isn't that just as good ? He has his way, you have yours.
Do you have more "good" molecules in your brain and he have more "bad" molecules in his ?
Right wing religious nutjobs have no place in my life, no place in telling me how I should behave in my bedroom, whom I sleep with or whatever.
Why are "right wing religious nutjobs" evil ?
Is your personal taste the universal unchanging standard for goodness ?
Charles Manson would probably argue with you that his tastes for the way peope should be treated is universal unchanging standard we all should live by.
What makes us all obligated to your moral standard as opposed to those of Charles Manson or "right wing religious nutjobs" like say, Timothy McViegh ?
At the end of history will all these ones you count morally inferior come before you to be judged ? To what will they and you be held up against as accountable ? Or does everyone simply dissolve peacefully into the dust leaving only material for a lively discussion ?
I intensely dislike proseltyzing and I intensely dislike people who distrust or hate people not of their own religion. If I want to believe a Hippo is my god, so be it.
That's nice. But it is your sense of absolute moral standard that I am asking you about. I do not ask can you be a good guy. I ask you what is undeniably absolutely good about your preference to behave one way over another ?
If I want to believe there is no god, also so be it, and woe be to the person who decides I am to be killed for that belief or non-belief.
I am not a war like person, neither am I particularly peaceful.
Where do you get your realization of what is cruel and unjust ?
If not your personal taste, what transcendent absolute furnishes you with a measure to discriminate between good and evil ?
Have you measured good in a scientific lab so that you know its weight ?
Have you detected an evil atom and propose how to eliminate them from people's brains ?
It is obvious to me when the bible puts down women, saying a man is worth 50 shekels and a woman 35, that is all the proof I need to see the entire edifice of christianity as man made and by extension, every other religion on Earth.
I want to know why your opinion should be the universal moral law by which all humans know Justice or Injustice.
Did you pick this sense of absolute right and wrong out of thin air ?
How do you have the authority to impose your outrage of the treatment of women upon all mankind ?
Is there any hope that the rest of us will be accountable to your enforcement of justice in this matter ?
It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to see that but people are so profoundly brainwashed by all the BS promises, they will let anything happen in religion, burning 'witches', hanging gays, shunning or killing apostates, religious wars.
If there are some unalienable rights we possess such that we should not be treated badly this way, from where or from what are these rights derived ? Why is your sense of moral outrage an indication that universally all people should feel as you do ?
Evolution simply rewards surviving. As long as species survive what does Evolution care about Truth or Justice ?
Is Evolution somehow moving species towards some goodness and justice in an absolute sense ? How is it that goodness is what comes next in the evolutionary process ? I thought Natural Selection only cared for survival and nothing for real ultimate truth or justice.
All that totally un-necessary and clearly man made. There is no god that would make women be on a lower plane than men. It doesn't need to go any deeper than that.
In the past I presented many passages showing women on the equal plane with men in the Old Testament. I would have to write them out all over again.
But it is somewhat beside my question on where you derive your sense of Absolute Moral Good from.
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Originally posted by jaywillI think most people have an innate sense of morality and kids will develop pretty much the same morality wise with a church or without a church. That tells me the church is an artificial construct. We don't need to have our heads pounded every day with morality lessons.What I have is common courtesy, if I see a woman getting raped, I am at the perp with a baseball bat or anything else I can scrounge up, I don't need a moralistic roadmap man made for the express purpose of controlling men and suppressing women.
But does this have any more weight than you preference for one soft drink over another ?
e my question on where you derive your sense of Absolute Moral Good from.
I get my morality by the way I see people being treated, by the wrongs that happen to them or the help they get. I don't need and never will need your man made god as a continual reference.
If there are references in the OT showing women being treated fairly it just means the bible contradicts itself and you just cherry pick those verses you like in your life and ignore the rest. If you didn't you would go crazy with your cognitive dissonance.
Besides all that, this is the 21st century, things are incredibly more complex than those easy days 2000 years ago where it was left or right, right or wrong, not much in between.
We as a civilization are making huge mistakes everyday using morality from 2000 years ago when the world now talks about men walking on the moon, cures for cancer, universal health care, universal educational opportunity, practical telepathy (cell phones), social media and the like.
We are on a different planet from back in those primitive days even 300 years ago much less 2000.
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Originally posted by sonhouse
I think most people have an innate sense of morality and kids will develop pretty much the same morality wise with a church or without a church. That tells me the church is an artificial construct. We don't need to have our heads pounded every day with morality lessons.
I get my morality by the way I see people being treated, by the wrongs that happen to re on a different planet from back in those primitive days even 300 years ago much less 2000.
I think most people have an innate sense of morality and kids will develop pretty much the same morality wise with a church or without a church. That tells me the church is an artificial construct. We don't need to have our heads pounded every day with morality lessons.
I don't question that people have an innate sense of morality. I don't question that a card carrying Atheist can have an innate sense of morality.
What I question is - Where did this innate sense come from ?
Did we just pick it out of the air and decide to have it ?
I think it has something to do with man being created in the image of God and reflecting something of God's Moral Being. That is not dependent of someone's belief or non-belief in God. That is not dependent on one being a church goer or not.
That is related to how a person is CREATED.
If human morality does not reflect an absolute moral standard as part of God our Creator, where does this innate sense come from ? Good atoms and bad atoms the compose our brains ?
If so then science should try to harness these good atoms for more control, and maybe find a way to eliminate the bad atoms.
Where does this innate sense come from ?
I get my morality by the way I see people being treated, by the wrongs that happen to them or the help they get. I don't need and never will need your man made god as a continual reference.
But the matter I press is 'Why are the wrongs wrong ? Why are the rights right on any universal and absolute standard ?"
Maybe wrong things are wrong because of your individual preference, like you think maybe Pepsi is better than Coke, or visa versa.
If there are references in the OT showing women being treated fairly it just means the bible contradicts itself and you just cherry pick those verses you like in your life and ignore the rest. If you didn't you would go crazy with your cognitive dissonance.
Critcs of the Bible are often like a child that has to sit on the lap of the parent in order to reach the parent's face to slap it.
Do you realize that you are standing upon many Judeao / Christian moral concepts in order to reach out to criticize the Judeo / Christian God of the Bible ?
You have to sit on God's lap in order to slap His face. I bet your outrage at oppression of women is fueled by social movements grounded not in Islam but in Christianity.
Ie, Quaker, Mennonite, Methodist protest of racial oppression and slavery, extended to awaken also feelings of Women's Suffrage. Slave abolitionists used the Bible quite a lot to argue for the dignity of all humans as opposed to reducing your fellow man to a animal like beast of burden.
You should examine the sources which enfluence your sense of outrage. Find out what caused you to think in this way. Was it speeches by men like Martin Luther King ? He was a Baptist clergyman. Was it speeches by X - slave Sojournor Truth ... "Ain't I a Woman ??" She was an intenerit Gospel preacher.
Point to something Charles Darwin said that makes you have a sense of outrage at the mistreatment of women. Give me one line of Darwin's words which inspired your disgust at the mistreatment of women.
Give me a few words from Aldous Huxley (Darwin's Bulldog) which inspired you to look at about the oppression of women.
I read about a mob wanting to stone a woman caught in the act of adultery. I read that this man Jesus touched the conscience of the entire mob with these few words - "He who is without sin among you let him be the first to cast a stone at her."
From the oldest to the youngest their consciences told them to leave the murderous mob. That story has still touched people for 20 some centries about oppression of women.
The popular book by T.D. Jakes called "Woman Thou Are't Loosed" has been a best seller and uplifted many oppressed women. It based on Christian theology.
I think more taking advantage of women has occured from young men who figure people are just more advanced animals then men regarding them as created in the image of God like men. Everyone knows that Evolution has been an invitation to sexual revolution for decades.
The slave owners who took female slaves to bed, were checked by Christian abolitionistss that they were not fornicating with animals of a lower Darwinian nature but with fellow human beings also created in God's image.
The oppressors of women in the US South had to come up with a teaching that blacks had no souls in order to relegate them to animal status. But not to far removed that the master could not leave his wife and go out to have sex with a few black slave women a few times a week.
Losing track of man in women made in God's image led to great oppression of woman. And that was fueled by your boy Darwin. Why else did white people ask to see the tail on the behind of the black man ? They thought they were on a lower Darwinian scale of humanity.
Jesus taught that even to look at a woman to lust after her in your heart was to commit adultery with her. I think He was looking out after the respect of woman starting with the innermost imagination and motive of the males.
And Christ said God was His Father and that He was Son of God. So your "God verses the rise of women" is not too convincing to me.
Pornograpy is a billion dollar business. Could men in good conscience involve themselves in its slavery if they took seriously Christ's words ?
"You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. " ( Matt. 5:27,28)
He is not talking about the seeing of beauty. He is talking about the second look of gazing with lust in the imagniation. He is talking about a higher and more humane sense of self control. He is certainly talking about the exercise of self control by the married man towards women. ie. "adultery".
So your "God verses the dignity of women" protest doesn't ring realistic with me. We had this discussion once already. Now I would have to repost many passages over again. You should have gotten it the first time.
The next time you turn on your TV or watch a Rock video or see a movie or even flip through a magazine check and see if you deal with the root source of much oppression of women as things, as objects of your own greed.
See if your standard comes up to the level of morality that Jesus taught in Matthew 5:27,28. And if it doesn't you should consider that you need forgiveness from the guilt of sin and deliverance from the power of sin by God.
Originally posted by FMFWell so far, other than his preference I see no comprehension of universal and absolute goodness.
This lightweight, facile argumentation doesn't work, jaywill. Soft drink preferences?
So it is on the level of "I like this way rather than that way."
Personal taste.
Now if you begin to argue that the human conscience protests in all of us at certain bad behaviors, then we can inquire why this should be so.
Ie. why should it be that Atheist, Buddhist, Agnostic, Secularist, all have a similar sense that something is WRONG and something else is just RIGHT.
My Bible says "There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding." We are pretty sure that this "breath of the Almighty" has to do with the human conscience placed into man's psychological heart by his Designer.
I have an answer for the innate sense of moral right and wrong. The human consience is placed there regardless if the man believes in God or doesn't.
But where does this understanding of moral right and wrong come from if man has no Creator who had it Himself to bestow upon His creatures ?
Did sonhouse just choose to feel this way out of thin air? Is his brain enfluenced by good atoms and bad atoms ?
What is the atomic weight of a bad atom ?
What is the measurement of a good atom ?
Originally posted by jaywillgood and bad atoms? the breath of the almighty gives him understanding?
Well so far, other than his preference I see no comprehension of universal and absolute goodness.
So it is on the level of "I like this way rather than that way."
Personal taste.
Now if you begin to argue that the human [b]conscience protests in all of us at certain bad behaviors, then we can inquire why this should be so.
Ie. why shoul ...[text shortened]...
What is the atomic weight of a bad atom ?
What is the measurement of a good atom ?[/b]
wow. so tell me, where in the bible does the almighty give some of the other creatures understanding?
Originally posted by jaywillabsolute, transcendent, universalWhat I have is common courtesy, if I see a woman getting raped, I am at the perp with a baseball bat or anything else I can scrounge up, I don't need a moralistic roadmap man made for the express purpose of controlling men and suppressing women.
But does this have any more weight than you preference for one soft drink over another ?
...[text shortened]... e my question on where you derive your sense of Absolute Moral Good from.
absolute, transcendent, universal
[now everyone repeat after me....]
Originally posted by jaywillWhy don't you ask an aborigine of Australia where he gets his sense of morality. He sure as hell won't be saying it's from your god. He might say he gets his morality in dreams.
Well so far, other than his preference I see no comprehension of universal and absolute goodness.
So it is on the level of "I like this way rather than that way."
Personal taste.
Now if you begin to argue that the human [b]conscience protests in all of us at certain bad behaviors, then we can inquire why this should be so.
Ie. why shoul ...[text shortened]...
What is the atomic weight of a bad atom ?
What is the measurement of a good atom ?[/b]
What is it that you think I don't have that you seem to think you have from reading a 3000 and 2000 year old book that doesn't even begin to deal with the complexities of modern society, issues that would leave old Paul and Matthew shaking their heads and not able to figure anything out.
Exactly how is a human supposed to know where his or her morality came from if it is not from your bible? What about Dasa and his ipanashads(Probably mis-spelled it) You think your bible is superior to his belief's? If so why?
What about Coptics? is your morality better than theirs? I think you enter into this entire discussion with the underlying assumption your moral codes are far superior to any other on the planet.
What about the morality of the past religious wars? the Crusades? Was that moral?
What about the massacres of the Aztecs by the Spanish who had priests with them to forcibly convert the South American Indians to Catholicism. Was that moral?
You can't pull the 'they were not really Christian' card because they all THOUGHT they were Christians.
If your moral code coming from your religion is so superior how do you justify those religious wars?
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Originally posted by sonhousejaywill believes that because humans share some common morals, the morals must therefore come from his deranged biblegod.
Why don't you ask an aborigine of Australia where he gets his sense of morality. He sure as hell won't be saying it's from your god. He might say he gets his morality in dreams.
What is it that you think I don't have that you seem to think you have from reading a 3000 and 2000 year old book that doesn't even begin to deal with the complexities of modern code coming from your religion is so superior how do you justify those religious wars?
[edit] but i guess he hasn't read genesis. it tells us the source of morals at the end of chapter 3.
Originally posted by sonhouseUpanishads. Supposedly the oldest religios book in our "modern civilized" society. All hinduism comes from that and buddhism was born in that society.
Why don't you ask an aborigine of Australia where he gets his sense of morality. He sure as hell won't be saying it's from your god. He might say he gets his morality in dreams.
What is it that you think I don't have that you seem to think you have from reading a 3000 and 2000 year old book that doesn't even begin to deal with the complexities of modern ...[text shortened]... code coming from your religion is so superior how do you justify those religious wars?
The australian aboriginies have been around AT LEAST 40 000 years, as has their mytholigies and their "morality" 😉
Originally posted by jaywillUniversal absolute goodness? When the only example comes from observations of one tiny planet in a sea of near infinity? That's only a SLIGHT stretch🙂
Well so far, other than his preference I see no comprehension of universal and absolute goodness.
So it is on the level of "I like this way rather than that way."
Personal taste.
Now if you begin to argue that the human [b]conscience protests in all of us at certain bad behaviors, then we can inquire why this should be so.
Ie. why shoul ...[text shortened]...
What is the atomic weight of a bad atom ?
What is the measurement of a good atom ?[/b]
Besides your universal all encompassing morality is a mass hallucination set up thousands of years ago to trap the unwary of a man made religion. There are NO supernatural religions, they are 100% man made, from Aborigine creationism to so-called Christian creation (It should be called by rights Paulism). They are all man made and therefore only as universal as the limits of this planet.
You can grouse and whine all you want, spout biblical verse by the hundreds which I am sure you will but you are talking to deaf ears.
I don't want your brand of salvation.
If a real god came down and offered me salvation and I thought maybe I'm not just crazy ( my first choice if such a thing happened to me) I might believe it but coming from humans? No thanks. Won't deal with intermediaries.
Having humans come up to me and telling me if I come to their church I will be saved is to me like coming a across a live talking Trex who says, hi, come on over, I just want to be friends......
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Originally posted by sonhouse
Universal absolute goodness? When the only example comes from observations of one tiny planet in a sea of near infinity? That's only a SLIGHT stretch🙂
Besides your universal all encompassing morality is a mass hallucination set up thousands of years ago to trap the unwary of a man made religion. There are NO supernatural religions, they are 100% man mad ing a across a live talking Trex who says, hi, come on over, I just want to be friends......
Universal absolute goodness? When the only example comes from observations of one tiny planet in a sea of near infinity? That's only a SLIGHT stretch
The sense of certain morally right and wrong things is not effected by space.
You make decisions frequently about good and evil without worrying what is being practiced on some remote planet in the Andrameda galaxy millions of light years away.
There is something universal within you that you know that you know is the right or wrong. Have any idea where that sense came from ?
Besides your universal all encompassing morality is a mass hallucination set up thousands of years ago to trap the unwary of a man made religion.
Here we go again. Why is the trapping of the unwary so repulsive to you ? (Not suggesting that Jesus Christ set out to trap the unwary).
Christ had many scathing things to say about the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. White washed tombs, hypocrits, blind leading the blind, etc. etc. Everybody peeved at religionists is well familiar with the scolding the scribes, Pharisees, and Saducees received from Jesus.
I bet many of those concepts you agree with. Now you turn them on the Christianity that you despise. You have to sit on the lap of God in order to reach Him to slap His face.
There are NO supernatural religions, they are 100% man made,
I still have no answer from you on where your yardstick to measure everyone else's morality comes from. This sentence is a shift to an argument about the supernatural.
Of course for all intents and purposes the existence of the universe, by strong evidence, is due to powers outside of space and time and energy. That is supernatural for at the Big Bang time, space, and energy came into existence. So aside from religion, we owe our existence to some force transcending the natural realm.
Robert Gastrow, agnostic, founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies has said -
"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover ... That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."
Since the universe began with what appears to be a supernatural act we cannot rule out that the supernatural never occurs.
from Aborigine creationism to so-called Christian creation (It should be called by rights Paulism). They are all man made and therefore only as universal as the limits of this planet.
That is your generalization which is way over broad and also falsely ascribes to the Apostle Paul a bit too much.
But on the moral law issue - a Moral Law implies a Moral Law Giver. I hear you express all kinds of moral outrage, fuming about this wrong and that evil and that other moral error. You fume but have never stopped to ask yourself where this sense of measuring moral goodness comes from within you.
If you have a way to discriminate evil, that means you have a way to separate it from good. That means you have some standard by which to measure them. You can place behavior up against some "ruler" and measure it.
Where does your "ruler" come from ?
You know two plus two does not equal five. With as much confidence you know that trapping unwary people with religion to exploit them is also bad. You have no question about it. Innately, you know that that is wrong.
Where comes this sense of man's moral obligation ?
You can grouse and whine all you want, spout biblical verse by the hundreds which I am sure you will but you are talking to deaf ears.
I'm not whining at all. The only deaf ears are yours who cannot answer my questions.
I would take "I don't know" as an acceptable reply. If you honestly don't know where your and everyone else's moral obligation comes from then you should just admit that you do not know.
I don't want your brand of salvation.
We understand that. The moral law in you, informing you of some self-evident ruler to discriminate the good from the evil - why does it exist in you and in everyone else ?
If we are morally obligated, then to whom are we obligated ? That is everyone of us, to whom ?
Haven't you noticed in life that you could get away with quite a few things, undetected, unpunished, and even sometimes unrewarded ? Is there some overall final law giving entity to which we are accountable ? We simply duck away sometimes and do what we want. Then the next day we condemn someone else for doing what we ourselves just did.
You have taken advantage of the unwary at least sometime in your life. Sure you did. You withheld information to gain the advantage on someone. Other times you exaggerated to gain the advantage of someone. You selectively provided them information in order to munipulate their decisions. You prefered to keep them "unwary" so that you could gain the upper hand.
Sure you did sonhouse. Sure you did. So does the fact that you can point out that religions can take advantage of unwary people, make you any better ? Are you any more moral simply because "It takes one to know one" ?
Now my Bible warns me that as I judge I myself will BE judged because I do the exact same things that I condemn in others, many times:
"Therefore you are without excuse, O every man who judges, for in what you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." (Romans 2:1)
You may not want salvation from this delimma. But I do. When I judge another I condemn myself because so often "It takes one to know one." I am doing or have done the exact same thing in too many instances. Just like you condemn opportunistic religion for trapping unwary people and you yourself have taken advantage of the unwary to trap them for your purposes.
If you say you haven't you are a liar.
Then Paul continues:
"But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth upon those who practice such things. And do you consider this, O man, who judge those who practice such things and do the same yourself that you will escape the judgment of God ?
Or do you despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that God's kindness is leading you to repentance ?" (vs. 2-4)
Today you use your two lips to pronounce criticism on many people. Do you know that day will come and you will stand before God and use your two lips to criticize yourself ?
You may not want a salvation. But I do for this moral law is of God - And ALL have sinned and ALL have come short of the glory of God.
But I await your alternative explanation of the existence of your sense of a standard of moral good against which you measure others, rebuking them that they have not come up to the proper level of good.
Did evolution furnish you with this moral law ? Evolution only cares for survival. We cannot say that the judgment of Evolution is according to truth.
But the Bible says that the judgment of God is according to truth.
If a real god came down and offered me salvation and I thought maybe I'm not just crazy ( my first choice if such a thing happened to me) I might believe it but coming from humans? No thanks. Won't deal with intermediaries.
I think that may be a step in the right direction.
But it is the Moral Law question that I want to see you either address or admit that it is a mystery to you.
Having humans come up to me and telling me if I come to their church I will be saved is to me like coming a across a live talking Trex who says, hi, come on over, I just want to be friends......
Then I am going to pray for you that God teach you quite DIRECTLY of Himself by Himself.
You have not explained where you sense of overall human moral obligation derives from. You want to stand upon that sense in order to slap around the God of the Bible and many of His believers.
I ask you what you are standing on. I want to know if you are just standing on your preference which is not at all universaly binding on human beings. And if your moral sense calls for a universal obligation of all men, WHY ?
(Waiting for some more experienced Atheist to help you out ? Ask them.)