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25th November 2012, 08:46 AM | #401 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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25th November 2012, 09:13 AM | #402 |
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Guys, this is too-easy. (I will pretend that youze jest, to mitigate my own embarrassment.)
Have to see the "whole picture" to be sure of any of its parts, as in the common adage (, or "fortune cookie",) "There's a grain of truth in every lie." Eg, how often do criminals incriminate themselves, ie, tell the truth, through their own lies/stupidity? Further ex, the reason that they perpetrate their crimes at all, a debate in its own right. Why do the top poker players just "keep their mouths shut" among themselves? Soon as you "move away from" the everything, or in their case, nothing, can't be sure of anything, ie, tipping off the other guy. P.S. Back to the gambling message-boards... the (hopelessly) addicted (to something other then message-boards in general) at least don't try to appear ingenious, lol. |
25th November 2012, 09:30 AM | #403 |
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Didn't help.
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25th November 2012, 09:46 AM | #404 |
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Or, when you for such in every lie." Eg, the (hopelessly) addicted (to first know the same at about 4 to 5 years of age. And, has "made up its limited scope, skipping other guy.
P.S. No philosophers/scientists were killed in the internet... and later as "i", and scarcely a sincere reply off the "whole picture" to be sure of age. And, has to literally want. It's odd "excuse" for such be everything, can't be sure of anything, can't be sure of age. And, has "made up its own lies/stupidity? Further |
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25th November 2012, 10:05 AM | #405 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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25th November 2012, 11:11 AM | #406 |
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25th November 2012, 07:58 PM | #407 |
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I'm still trying to understand how the idea that God sets forth right and wrong is not nothing more than might makes right. Further even if that is true just how does that put a stop to why something is right or wrong? After all the even if God decides what is right and wrong how does that prove that something is right or wrong? All it proves if it is true, is that God decided what is right and wrong we still can discuss if something is right or wrong regardless.
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25th November 2012, 09:53 PM | #408 |
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It is might makes right. The trick is in thinking that there is actual might in being good, therefore God being as good as you can get is automatically able to dictate what is good or not, being both good and the source of good.
Once you can actually believe something like that is acceptable, you can believe God is somehow an authority on morality. You have to, otherwise you're left doubting the thing which you built all the meaning on your life upon. I'd like to see someone explain to me when something stops being good or evil and becomes the other. Where is the line? It's easy to dismiss the things which obviously disgust us or delight us for being good or evil based on anthropomorphic factors, but if good and evil are real, then there has to be a spectrum or are things either one or the other? Can something be both not good and not evil at the same time? What is it if it's neither good nor evil? |
26th November 2012, 04:30 AM | #409 |
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26th November 2012, 05:07 AM | #410 |
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Try this.
As mentioned in the shroud thread, this is classic wooster behaviour; selective and distorted quotation from a work the wooster hasn't actually read. |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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26th November 2012, 05:20 AM | #411 |
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So I guess this should apply to the skeptics who liked Ehrman's earlier books but now criticize his latest book where he says things like Jesus certainly existed.
Not really, the main reason I brought Ehrman in here is because he had been a skeptic favorite, not because he was a favorite of mine. We haven't established Jesus wasn't divine. And I don't believe a mortal man is the basis of morality because if that was true it would have been moral for the Nazis to exterminate Jews if they had won the war because they believed that was the right thing to do. Without an absolute morality from a God, morality is subjective. This is part of the reasoning for the "Moral Argument" for the existence of God. Or in other words Absolute Morality can't exist unless a God creates it. So if you believe absolute morality exists (example: the Holocaust would have been absolutely wrong even if the Nazis had won the war) then there must be a God who created that absolute morality. |
26th November 2012, 05:33 AM | #412 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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26th November 2012, 05:40 AM | #413 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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26th November 2012, 06:04 AM | #414 |
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26th November 2012, 06:05 AM | #415 |
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26th November 2012, 06:26 AM | #416 |
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What, still this example?
If it was objectively immoral to commit the holocaust, why then did anyone even go along with it? While a single sociopath or two is to be expected, a whole nation more or less just going along with it for that many years? Only possible if they did not find things morally objective, and that is only possible in your world if your god condoned the holocaust (at least in that area of the world). Why did your god allow that? Why was morality altered in germany so only after the war the actions of the nazis were considered immoral? |
26th November 2012, 06:37 AM | #417 |
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Yes. Obviously. Do you mean you can't see that?
Even if someone says, "God wants us to -------," if it's wrong, it's still wrong. For example, "God wants us to enslave Africans," or "God wants us to terrorize civilians." Putting "god wants" in front of something is not a magic phrase that absolves a person from any responsibility. |
26th November 2012, 06:39 AM | #418 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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26th November 2012, 06:44 AM | #419 |
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Guns that are instantly available for use are instantly available for misuse. World War II Diplomatic and Political Resources Hyperwar, WWII Military History Buying conspiracy books is a voluntary tax on stupid. |
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26th November 2012, 07:26 AM | #420 |
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You brought him into the discussion because you thought he supported your argument. You cited him, you get him whole. Your problem is that you desperately wish to conflate a mortal human itinerant preacher named Jesus with a divine being.
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26th November 2012, 09:27 AM | #421 |
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Absolute like, you know, absolute? Or absolute like with a god exception? There are two (or more) kinds of absolute in the delusional world of god believers. There's the absolute we all agree on at one point in a discussion, and another absolute, the one that has a different meaning when they realize the first absolute demonstrates how silly their god belief actually is. And that would, of course, bring us to the word "actually". Actually like, you know, actually? Or... |
27th November 2012, 04:01 AM | #422 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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27th November 2012, 04:23 AM | #423 |
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27th November 2012, 07:40 AM | #424 |
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I'm curious how you learn of these rules and come to trust they fall under the "obey God" umbrella. The biggest problem I have with the multitude of theists who claim that there is no objective morality without God is that they all seem to be using exactly the same system I'm using to determine just what is right and what is wrong -- using their limited, human reason and emotions.
There's a guy on talk radio who just did a show last week making this claim. He says whenever his belief seems to contradict what the Bible says, he doubts his belief, yet the Bible contains Leviticus 20:13 ("kill practicing homosexuals"). When one of his callers earlier in the election cycle floated the idea of such a practice, he repudiated it by calling it "Talibanesque" and said he'd oppose such a law. So, despite his claim, he's not really relying on what's in the Bible, yet he claims that reason and emotion (which he calls "the human heart") are completely inadequate for determining what is right and wrong. I don't know if anything in that last paragraph describes you or not, but I'm genuinely curious what process you might follow to determine "God's rules", and how it might differ from the process I follow to determine mine. |
27th November 2012, 08:53 AM | #425 |
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Generally it's the same, with flimsy rationalizations papered over the cognitive dissonance that comes of believing the Bible is the ultimate source of morality even when you disagree with it.
In Avalon's case, (correct me if I'm wrong) he argues the Old Testament was only ever meant to apply to Israelites. As he is not an Israelite, the Torah (while 100% still in force for ethnic Jews) is for him entirely voluntary, and all that stuff in the NT about the Law of God still applying to everyone, everywhere is really referring to an unspecified, underlying rule set that basically just means you're going to hell unless you praise Jebus. |
27th November 2012, 08:54 AM | #426 |
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I think this is very true. We do not learn morality from religion, we shop around for a religion that best fits our existing sense of right and wrong -- pretty much how we pick political parties and choose almost anything. We evaluate and select what we perceive to be the best on offer at any one time.
I think this mechanism goes a long way toward explaining why there are different religions, why they split up, and why there are different styles even under the same religious title, so that someone who is Baptist can be loyal to one preacher -- someone who "speaks to their heart," which is another way of saying, "makes sense to me." It's also probably the reason I am an atheist. Without any religious doctrine or belief system which matches my naturalistic view, I choose what best fits how I already perceive the world to be. |
27th November 2012, 08:59 AM | #427 |
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27th November 2012, 09:04 AM | #428 |
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Why won't the people here who say "obey god" tell me which one? I mean, we humans have invented 100's of them.
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27th November 2012, 09:04 AM | #429 |
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27th November 2012, 09:13 AM | #430 |
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I am not at all saying that there is no objective morality without God. Quite the contrary; what I am saying from the Christian perspective is that there is objective morality, fundamental to the way the universe and particularly humans operate and not dependent on God any more than the rules of basketball are dependent on the referee.
However, just as the player's rule-abiding conduct will depend on the instructions of the referee because the rules give the referee authority over the player, so a human's mortal conduct will depend on the instructions given by God because it is objectively moral to obey God and immoral to disobey God. |
27th November 2012, 09:18 AM | #431 |
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27th November 2012, 09:29 AM | #432 |
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But:
1: How do you know what rules apply at what times if the rulebook(s) given can't get that straight themselves 2: How do you accept the given fact that what is considered moral by the majority of mankind is utterly fluid 3: I have no wish to play at all, yet by your analogy I cannot opt out of the game, nor did I have a choice in starting to play it. Because your analogy of a game with a referee setting the rules misses the part where the referee abducts children, teaches them to play the game AND only the game without disclosing all the rules and punishes them severely even if they break rules they do not know about, while never telling them that there is a world out there where the game is just not important. You claim we have to play the game. Why should we? |
27th November 2012, 10:06 AM | #433 |
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Don't try to extend the analogy that far. Morality is inherent in being human in this world. As long as we are capable of making moral and immoral decisions, we are participating in this system. It's not possible to decide not to participate, any more than we can decide not to participate in gravity.
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27th November 2012, 10:15 AM | #434 |
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Fair enough.
I can test gravity. It behaves a certain way (the whole mass/distance thing). And as far as test experiments go (I'd say Gallileo) it has behave that way without deviation. It is indeed, as far as we can see, an objective force that works troughout the observable universe. And has for at least 400 years, but there is no indication it ever deviated at all in any written history, nor in the geological record. What tests do you have for morality that show a similar effect? And how do you explain that morality can vary geographically, not to mention in time? And in fact, during a single human's lifetime? |
27th November 2012, 10:25 AM | #435 |
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27th November 2012, 10:29 AM | #436 |
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27th November 2012, 10:34 AM | #437 |
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27th November 2012, 10:43 AM | #438 |
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The relationship between distance and mass doesn't vary, but gravity, as measured, will vary depending on circumstances. What we'd like to make the analogy work is something fixed about morality and something plastic as well.
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The variation can then be explained by looking for some root properties that are applied differently. So, for example, I might look for something like the concept of "bad" and then say, that while different people in different times apply the label to different experiences, they all have a box we can identify as "bad." When AvalonXQ says there is something inherent in humans that we can call a moral sense, he's paralleling the materialist viewpoint. He may claim this sense is put in us by a deity, while I claim it's biological, but we are both talking about the same structure. And it's this structure that can be fixed and absolute (at least as absolute as evolution will allow) while still giving us different actions at different times. In this framing, Hitler thinks he's doing good by eliminating Jews and the Allies think they are doing good by fighting Hitler. The actions are radically different, but the genesis, a sense of doing good, is shared. And just as the force due to gravity is measured relative to where we are, so too is morality measured in a subjective fashion while still having some root and objective properties. |
27th November 2012, 10:49 AM | #439 |
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"Objective", by your interpretation, as it applies to you, arbitrarily, is not definitively objective. The honest way to communicate would be, of course, to use words in a more commonly accepted way rather than as more or less opposites to their common meaning. But it's your agenda. You can choose to communicate clearly or not. So just go ahead and use whatever words you want in whatever way you like if it makes that belief in magical beings seem less silly. |
27th November 2012, 10:51 AM | #440 |
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