Evolution
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While evolution does appear to have overwhelming anecdotal evidence supporting it's assertions, actual quantitative evidence is lacking. Particularly in the evolution of "man". It is firmly a theory and will remain so, I believe, for a long long time. Too many scientists are receiving accolades for logic such as; if A is true and if B is true then CDEFG are all true! No, they are not.
But, let's humor the eventual proclamation of human being evolution being false, which I believe will eventually be admitted by honest researchers. What does that leave? Two plausible explanations. The first is spontaneous existence. Poof, there we are. The second is manipulative existence or intelligent design. Either by deity or the applied genetic science of yet another race of beings. The implications of both are staggering.0 -
Give me a specific verse and I'll address it in its context. I do recall several Old Testament war texts where the wives of men killed in battle could be taken by the Israelites and married. Again, such texts are consistent with middle eastern war texts and emphasize the triumph of an army over its enemies. You might read the Old Testament more accurately if you first sympathetically read the biblical texts in light of other similar ancient texts and identify the genre, its distinctive features, its use of hyperbole and imagery consistent with its context. Taking the wives of your enemy and marrying them is an expression indicating total defeat of your enemy. It is not endorsing rape but, rather, triumph over one's foe.
1. Did God tell Moses to kill all the Caananites except for the virgins to keep for their soldiers? That is rape, unless you think all those young girls just happened to have a war fetish.
If I heard a big, booming voice tomorrow telling me to sacrifice my child I would probably admit myself to a mental ward. That being said, you totally rip a story out of an intricate context to make it sound foolish. If I had, some years before, heard the same booming voice tell me that my aged wife, who could never have children, was going to have a child as a gift from God and it really happened (along with a host of other miraculous signs), I would probably think quite differently about the whole matter. Abraham, in the biblical context, was obviously a radically unusual and unique case and therefore should not be seen as normative. That's what you can't seem to realize. You keep focusing on a few texts in the Bible in very unusual circumstances and use the exceptional cases to formulate some kind of general evaluation of the Bible. You show no sensitivity to context, specific or more general, you don't seem to care at all about the analysis of ancient literary genres. It doesn't matter to you that neither Judaism nor Christianity has interpreted the texts that you are referring to as teaching general principles for moral behavior.2. Not that this is going to happen, but lets say it did. Tonight, a big booming voice comes out of the clouds and tell you to take a knife and kill your own child to prove your devotion to God. What do yo do?
I might add that the primary arguments I have emphasized today have not been directly answered by you. I still have no reason to think an atheist can provide a real foundation for morality. I still have no reason to doubt that there is a real, objective moral law that is grounded in a transcendent source of law: God. No one has given a viable alternative. The atheist replies either totally miss the point or offer unconvincing explanations of morality only to contradict themselves by making condescending moral evaluations of other moral systems. The irony is that atheists deny God but can't even formulate a refutation of the moral argument for God's existence without unwittingly proving the validity of the argument when they make objective moral judgments with no rational foundation for them. There have been quite a number of instances of this just today.0 -
While evolution does appear to have overwhelming anecdotal evidence supporting it's assertions, actual quantitative evidence is lacking. Particularly in the evolution of "man". It is firmly a theory and will remain so, I believe, for a long long time. Too many scientists are receiving accolades for logic such as; if A is true and if B is true then CDEFG are all true! No, they are not.
But, let's humor the eventual proclamation of human being evolution being false, which I believe will eventually be admitted by honest researchers. What does that leave? Two plausible explanations. The first is spontaneous existence. Poof, there we are. The second is manipulative existence or intelligent design. Either by deity or the applied genetic science of yet another race of beings. The implications of both are staggering.
Uhhh, do you understand what it takes in terms of the scientific realm of something to be called a 'theory'???
Pedagogical definition
In pedagogical contexts or in official pronouncements by official organizations of scientists a definition such as the following may be promulgated.
According to the United States National Academy of Sciences,
Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena,[8]
Look up theory in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe as the atomic theory of matter or the germ theory of disease. Our understanding of gravity is still a work in progress. But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Pedagogical_definition0 -
Give me a specific verse and I'll address it in its context. I do recall several Old Testament war texts where the wives of men killed in battle could be taken by the Israelites and married. Again, such texts are consistent with middle eastern war texts and emphasize the triumph of an army over its enemies. You might read the Old Testament more accurately if you first sympathetically read the biblical texts in light of other similar ancient texts and identify the genre, its distinctive features, its use of hyperbole and imagery consistent with its context. Taking the wives of your enemy and marrying them is an expression indicating total defeat of your enemy. It is not endorsing rape but, rather, triumph over one's foe.
1. Did God tell Moses to kill all the Caananites except for the virgins to keep for their soldiers? That is rape, unless you think all those young girls just happened to have a war fetish.
If I heard a big, booming voice tomorrow telling me to sacrifice my child I would probably admit myself to a mental ward. That being said, you totally rip a story out of an intricate context to make it sound foolish. If I had, some years before, heard the same booming voice tell me that my aged wife, who could never have children, was going to have a child as a gift from God and it really happened (along with a host of other miraculous signs), I would probably think quite differently about the whole matter. Abraham, in the biblical context, was obviously a radically unusual and unique case and therefore should not be seen as normative. That's what you can't seem to realize. You keep focusing on a few texts in the Bible in very unusual circumstances and use the exceptional cases to formulate some kind of general evaluation of the Bible. You show no sensitivity to context, specific or more general, you don't seem to care at all about the analysis of ancient literary genres. It doesn't matter to you that neither Judaism nor Christianity has interpreted the texts that you are referring to as teaching general principles for moral behavior.2. Not that this is going to happen, but lets say it did. Tonight, a big booming voice comes out of the clouds and tell you to take a knife and kill your own child to prove your devotion to God. What do yo do?
I might add that the primary arguments I have emphasized today have not been directly answered by you. I still have no reason to think an atheist can provide a real foundation for morality. I still have no reason to doubt that there is a real, objective moral law that is grounded in a transcendent source of law: God. No one has given a viable alternative. The atheist replies either totally miss the point or offer unconvincing explanations of morality only to contradict themselves by making condescending moral evaluations of other moral systems. The irony is that atheists deny God but can't even formulate a refutation of the moral argument for God's existence without unwittingly proving the validity of the argument when they make objective moral judgments with no rational foundation for them. There have been quite a number of instances of this just today.
Yeah, you're right. Eventually all us agnostic/atheists will start killing people and raping children because we have no 'foundation' for our morals.
Now I'm not an agnostic that completely shuts out all possibility of a god-being existing. If God wants to show that he is real to me, he is more than welcome to. But in the many many times that I've tried over the past decade and more to seek out this 'connection' that others have, even go so far as to being 'saved' several years back, it still comes back to the fact that I end up grasping and pulling my hand back with nothing.
Quite frankly, if an atheist doesn't have a moral 'foundation' that is grounded in something like a god-being, or if a believer does, I really don't think it matters that much. What matters to me is how people live their lives, their actions, and how they treat others. I really don't give two sh*ts if their reasoning is grounded in the belief in a deity or not. The argument that atheists cannot have a good moral foundation since they 'deny' god ( and it's not that they deny god---you can't deny something you don't believe exists. Denying something means you believe that it's there but you choose to not accept it. Atheists don't believe that anything is there TO deny) is pretty offensive. Just like me telling a believer that they could not possibly be good people WITHOUT their religion would be viewed as offensive by some.
But it's okay. Believers will go on to think that atheists are second-class citizens who obviously cannot have a good moral foundation because they don't believe that a big man in the sky is real. Thankfully most atheists don't want their beliefs to rule over the lives of believers, and only would like to be offered the same courtesy in return.0 -
Give me a specific verse and I'll address it in its context. I do recall several Old Testament war texts where the wives of men killed in battle could be taken by the Israelites and married. Again, such texts are consistent with middle eastern war texts and emphasize the triumph of an army over its enemies. You might read the Old Testament more accurately if you first sympathetically read the biblical texts in light of other similar ancient texts and identify the genre, its distinctive features, its use of hyperbole and imagery consistent with its context. Taking the wives of your enemy and marrying them is an expression indicating total defeat of your enemy. It is not endorsing rape but, rather, triumph over one's foe.
1. Did God tell Moses to kill all the Caananites except for the virgins to keep for their soldiers? That is rape, unless you think all those young girls just happened to have a war fetish.
If I heard a big, booming voice tomorrow telling me to sacrifice my child I would probably admit myself to a mental ward. That being said, you totally rip a story out of an intricate context to make it sound foolish. If I had, some years before, heard the same booming voice tell me that my aged wife, who could never have children, was going to have a child as a gift from God and it really happened (along with a host of other miraculous signs), I would probably think quite differently about the whole matter. Abraham, in the biblical context, was obviously a radically unusual and unique case and therefore should not be seen as normative. That's what you can't seem to realize. You keep focusing on a few texts in the Bible in very unusual circumstances and use the exceptional cases to formulate some kind of general evaluation of the Bible. You show no sensitivity to context, specific or more general, you don't seem to care at all about the analysis of ancient literary genres. It doesn't matter to you that neither Judaism nor Christianity has interpreted the texts that you are referring to as teaching general principles for moral behavior.2. Not that this is going to happen, but lets say it did. Tonight, a big booming voice comes out of the clouds and tell you to take a knife and kill your own child to prove your devotion to God. What do yo do?
I might add that the primary arguments I have emphasized today have not been directly answered by you. I still have no reason to think an atheist can provide a real foundation for morality. I still have no reason to doubt that there is a real, objective moral law that is grounded in a transcendent source of law: God. No one has given a viable alternative. The atheist replies either totally miss the point or offer unconvincing explanations of morality only to contradict themselves by making condescending moral evaluations of other moral systems. The irony is that atheists deny God but can't even formulate a refutation of the moral argument for God's existence without unwittingly proving the validity of the argument when they make objective moral judgments with no rational foundation for them. There have been quite a number of instances of this just today.
A few texts? How about the whole story? Stone unruly teenagers. War crimes. Plagues upon Egypt to punish one mans arrogance. Here's some good ones.
Leviticus 20:9
If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.
20:10 If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
20:13 If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.
Deuteronomy 22:20-1 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house.
Exodus 35:2
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.
On Destroying Other People
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
20:10-17 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
On the Evil of Biblical Law
Ezekiel 20:25-26 I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.
On Slavery & Subjugation of Women
Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men.
2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
Leviticus 25:44-45
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
Jesus, on His Second Coming
Matthew 24:29-34
[T]he sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. . . . They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. . . . I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. [Emphasis added.]
16:27-28
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
And as far as the argument that you have heard nothing today that would make you question God as the source of morality, you have yet to prove that God is the source. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I am not the one making the claim. You are. And no matter what, your argument boils down to that if science has yet to figure something out, it must be God.0 -
Come on; you know I never said any of that, nor even remotely suggested it. Please read all of my comments.Yeah, you're right. Eventually all us agnostic/atheists will start killing people and raping children because we have no 'foundation' for our morals.Quite frankly, if an atheist doesn't have a moral 'foundation' that is grounded in something like a god-being, or if a believer does, I really don't think it matters that much. What matters to me is how people live their lives, their actions, and how they treat others. I really don't give two sh*ts if their reasoning is grounded in the belief in a deity or not. The argument that atheists cannot have a good moral foundation since they 'deny' god ( and it's not that they deny god---you can't deny something you don't believe exists. Denying something means you believe that it's there but you choose to not accept it. Atheists don't believe that anything is there TO deny) is pretty offensive. Just like me telling a believer that they could not possibly be good people WITHOUT their religion would be viewed as offensive by some.
Still missing my point, and I've been trying all day. I never said that atheists cannot be positive, law abiding citizens. Speak to some atheist scholars about what I mean by morality being "grounded" in something. Plenty of atheists will agree to this. It does NOT mean all atheists lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. I don't believe that nor do I want anyone reading this thread to walk away thinking that is what I'm suggesting. Maybe it will take an atheist to explain it better than I can because I will only be perceived as thinking/saying I'm above/better than anyone.But it's okay. Believers will go on to think that atheists are second-class citizens who obviously cannot have a good moral foundation because they don't believe that a big man in the sky is real. .
Who said that? I never did.0 -
[/quote]
Come on; you know I never said any of that, nor even remotely suggested it. Please read all of my comments.Yeah, you're right. Eventually all us agnostic/atheists will start killing people and raping children because we have no 'foundation' for our morals.Quite frankly, if an atheist doesn't have a moral 'foundation' that is grounded in something like a god-being, or if a believer does, I really don't think it matters that much. What matters to me is how people live their lives, their actions, and how they treat others. I really don't give two sh*ts if their reasoning is grounded in the belief in a deity or not. The argument that atheists cannot have a good moral foundation since they 'deny' god ( and it's not that they deny god---you can't deny something you don't believe exists. Denying something means you believe that it's there but you choose to not accept it. Atheists don't believe that anything is there TO deny) is pretty offensive. Just like me telling a believer that they could not possibly be good people WITHOUT their religion would be viewed as offensive by some.
Still missing my point, and I've been trying all day. I never said that atheists cannot be positive, law abiding citizens. Speak to some atheist scholars about what I mean by morality being "grounded" in something. Plenty of atheists will agree to this. It does NOT mean all atheists lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. I don't believe that nor do I want anyone reading this thread to walk away thinking that is what I'm suggesting. Maybe it will take an atheist to explain it better than I can because I will only be perceived as thinking/saying I'm above/better than anyone.
But it's okay. Believers will go on to think that atheists are second-class citizens who obviously cannot have a good moral foundation because they don't believe that a big man in the sky is real. Thankfully most atheists don't want their beliefs to rule over the lives of believers, and only would like to be offered the same courtesy in return.
Like I said before, I think I'd much rather trust the morals of a person who is moral based on their own character and not because they believe in a deity telling them what's right and wrong.0 -
Give me a specific verse and I'll address it in its context. I do recall several Old Testament war texts where the wives of men killed in battle could be taken by the Israelites and married. Again, such texts are consistent with middle eastern war texts and emphasize the triumph of an army over its enemies. You might read the Old Testament more accurately if you first sympathetically read the biblical texts in light of other similar ancient texts and identify the genre, its distinctive features, its use of hyperbole and imagery consistent with its context. Taking the wives of your enemy and marrying them is an expression indicating total defeat of your enemy. It is not endorsing rape but, rather, triumph over one's foe.
1. Did God tell Moses to kill all the Caananites except for the virgins to keep for their soldiers? That is rape, unless you think all those young girls just happened to have a war fetish.
If I heard a big, booming voice tomorrow telling me to sacrifice my child I would probably admit myself to a mental ward. That being said, you totally rip a story out of an intricate context to make it sound foolish. If I had, some years before, heard the same booming voice tell me that my aged wife, who could never have children, was going to have a child as a gift from God and it really happened (along with a host of other miraculous signs), I would probably think quite differently about the whole matter. Abraham, in the biblical context, was obviously a radically unusual and unique case and therefore should not be seen as normative. That's what you can't seem to realize. You keep focusing on a few texts in the Bible in very unusual circumstances and use the exceptional cases to formulate some kind of general evaluation of the Bible. You show no sensitivity to context, specific or more general, you don't seem to care at all about the analysis of ancient literary genres. It doesn't matter to you that neither Judaism nor Christianity has interpreted the texts that you are referring to as teaching general principles for moral behavior.2. Not that this is going to happen, but lets say it did. Tonight, a big booming voice comes out of the clouds and tell you to take a knife and kill your own child to prove your devotion to God. What do yo do?
I might add that the primary arguments I have emphasized today have not been directly answered by you. I still have no reason to think an atheist can provide a real foundation for morality. I still have no reason to doubt that there is a real, objective moral law that is grounded in a transcendent source of law: God. No one has given a viable alternative. The atheist replies either totally miss the point or offer unconvincing explanations of morality only to contradict themselves by making condescending moral evaluations of other moral systems. The irony is that atheists deny God but can't even formulate a refutation of the moral argument for God's existence without unwittingly proving the validity of the argument when they make objective moral judgments with no rational foundation for them. There have been quite a number of instances of this just today.
A few texts? How about the whole story? Stone unruly teenagers. War crimes. Plagues upon Egypt to punish one mans arrogance. Here's some good ones.
Leviticus 20:9
If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.
20:10 If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
20:13 If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.
Deuteronomy 22:20-1 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house.
Exodus 35:2
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.
On Destroying Other People
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
20:10-17 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
On the Evil of Biblical Law
Ezekiel 20:25-26 I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.
On Slavery & Subjugation of Women
Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men.
2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
Leviticus 25:44-45
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
Jesus, on His Second Coming
Matthew 24:29-34
[T]he sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. . . . They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. . . . I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. [Emphasis added.]
16:27-28
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
And as far as the argument that you have heard nothing today that would make you question God as the source of morality, you have yet to prove that God is the source. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I am not the one making the claim. You are. And no matter what, your argument boils down to that if science has yet to figure something out, it must be God.
Most believers will come back and tell you that Jesus makes the Old Testament God "null and void" in terms of how much of a d*ck he was. Old Testament God was not a nice God if we are to believe that what the Bible says is true.
Your last paragraph is another good point. When someone makes a claim of fact, it is their burden to prove the claim to be true.0 -
While evolution does appear to have overwhelming anecdotal evidence supporting it's assertions, actual quantitative evidence is lacking. Particularly in the evolution of "man". It is firmly a theory and will remain so, I believe, for a long long time. Too many scientists are receiving accolades for logic such as; if A is true and if B is true then CDEFG are all true! No, they are not.
But, let's humor the eventual proclamation of human being evolution being false, which I believe will eventually be admitted by honest researchers. What does that leave? Two plausible explanations. The first is spontaneous existence. Poof, there we are. The second is manipulative existence or intelligent design. Either by deity or the applied genetic science of yet another race of beings. The implications of both are staggering.
Uhhh, do you understand what it takes in terms of the scientific realm of something to be called a 'theory'???
Pedagogical definition
In pedagogical contexts or in official pronouncements by official organizations of scientists a definition such as the following may be promulgated.
According to the United States National Academy of Sciences,
Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena,[8]
Look up theory in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe as the atomic theory of matter or the germ theory of disease. Our understanding of gravity is still a work in progress. But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Pedagogical_definition
yes I do understand what it means for a something to carry the title of theory.
I also understand when a scientist declares a conclusion to be irrefutable they oft find themselves looking stupid.
Man made global warming, nothing exceeding light speed, the world is flat, etc.0 -
God doesn't want people forced into believing in and loving Him. It's certainly within his power, but thats not what He'a ever wanted He owes no one proof and believers don't owe anyone proof. It's faith. If you can find a Christian who claims to understand all of the mysteries of Christianity, let me know. We can choose to accept God or reject him. That's our will.0
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God doesn't want people forced into believing in and loving Him. It's certainly within his power, but thats not what He'a ever wanted He owes no one proof and believers don't owe anyone proof. It's faith. If you can find a Christian who claims to understand all of the mysteries of Christianity, let me know. We can choose to accept God or reject him. That's our will.
Yeah, no can do. Cannot blindly accept a being in the sky or force myself into believing he's real. My brain cannot do it.0 -
Still missing my point, and I've been trying all day. I never said that atheists cannot be positive, law abiding citizens. Speak to some atheist scholars about what I mean by morality being "grounded" in something. Plenty of atheists will agree to this. It does NOT mean all atheists lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. I don't believe that nor do I want anyone reading this thread to walk away thinking that is what I'm suggesting. Maybe it will take an atheist to explain it better than I can because I will only be perceived as thinking/saying I'm above/better than anyone.
I'll try. :glasses:
You are saying that atheists have a moral code, but atheists cannot pinpoint the source of this code, yes?0 -
Really? Then why is there Hell?God doesn't want people forced into believing in and loving Him. It's certainly within his power, but thats not what He'a ever wanted He owes no one proof and believers don't owe anyone proof. It's faith. If you can find a Christian who claims to understand all of the mysteries of Christianity, let me know. We can choose to accept God or reject him. That's our will.
A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
A few texts? How about the whole story? Stone unruly teenagers. War crimes. Plagues upon Egypt to punish one mans arrogance. Here's some good ones.
Leviticus 20:9
If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.
20:10 If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
20:13 If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.
Deuteronomy 22:20-1 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house.
Exodus 35:2
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.
On Destroying Other People
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
20:10-17 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
On the Evil of Biblical Law
Ezekiel 20:25-26 I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.
On Slavery & Subjugation of Women
Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men.
2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
Leviticus 25:44-45
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
Jesus, on His Second Coming
Matthew 24:29-34
[T]he sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. . . . They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. . . . I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. [Emphasis added.]
16:27-28
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
And as far as the argument that you have heard nothing today that would make you question God as the source of morality, you have yet to prove that God is the source. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I am not the one making the claim. You are. And no matter what, your argument boils down to that if science has yet to figure something out, it must be God.
You obviously cut and pasted these texts from some website. This is a smokescreen distracting attention from the issue I keep emphasizing but never seems to be taken seriously.
It is not "news" that the Law of Moses prescribes capital punishment for a host of offenses that were seen as corrosive and destructive to their community. What you don't seem to recognize is that these legal codes, like Hammurabi's, are written in ancient legal terminology. Do you realize that judges were to preside over cases of these offenses and they had a variety of options available to them for punishment? Do you realize that capital punishment was rarely used for such cases? Have you taken the time to study the centuries of reflection on these texts in the Hebrew Gemara? If you ever bother to do so, you will find the issues are much deeper than a collection of random texts thrown together on an atheist website indicate.
What is most astonishing, however, is the blaring gap in your reasoning. What justifies your condescending attitude towards these ancient middle-eastern laws? Haven't I asked you a number of times to explain what it is that allows you to condescendingly judge another culture? Why aren't these "laws" just as good as any you believe? What is the source of your moral indignation? The irony is that you, as an atheist, have no grounds to make moral judgments but, here you are, making moral judgments everywhere!
I'm not making an "extraordinary" claim at all. I'm saying intellectual and moral realities belong to a mind. Do you deny this? Where does the logical truth that A equals A or A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense (the principals of identity and non-contradiction) exist? Where does the mathematical judgment that 2 and 2 equals 4 exist? Just like you would say that material bodies in exist in space, so it is that logical truths exist in minds. The reality is, however, that logical truths are not caused by your mind; they are discovered by your mind. That means that their origin or proper source or residence is in a mind beyond your own. The same can be said of moral truths. The moral law imposes itself on your mind (your writings continue to prove this). Where does moral and logical law reside? In physical space? Of course not, they are not physical entities. It is perfectly logical to conclude that moral and logical truth belongs to a mind. Why does this mind have to be God? It would take a while to give the full answer but I'll suggest a few of the ideas I would argue in support of that conclusion. If you sincerely want to understand this, I'm happy to give more explanation. How long is it true that 2 plus 2 is 4? Always. Where is that truth located? Everywhere one thinks about it. Do logical truths depend on matter or space to be true? Of course not. Whatever the origin of logical and moral truths is, it must have commensurate attributes with logic and morality and therefore must be unbounded by time, space and matter, and must be eternal, uncaused and self-existent (or else we get caught in an infinite series of "explanations" that never truly account for themselves). This sounds a lot like what we mean by "God."
I never said that because science can't figure this out that it must be God. Where did I ever say that? I have said that science can't resolve these matters because they are in principal beyond science. You haven't addressed that claim at all. The scientific method, by its very nature, does not address morality. You have deep faith that it will someday do so. I have no such faith simply because morality is outside the range of science since it is not a material entity that can be studied with a microscope (or any other scientific tool). I'm saying that moral law is "objective" and it transcends individual human minds. This means that human minds participate in or somehow share in a moral law that is accessed by the mind (like the senses are "windows" into the sensory world, the sensory world is "objective" and the senses allow us to experience it; the human mind and will "receive" the logical and moral truths that come into our awareness; this means that like there is a sensory world that comes through the senses so there is a moral and logical world that comes through the receptive powers of the mind; since moral and logical truths are mental in nature, they imply a mind).0 -
You are saying that atheists have a moral code, but atheists cannot pinpoint the source of this code, yes?
If you mean what I think you mean, the answer is yes. :flowerforyou:
What I'm arguing is that atheists not only cannot pinpoint the source of the code but that they deny its source (God the supreme "mind" from which issues the moral law). The irony is that atheism denies there is an "objective" source of moral law (by "objective" I mean a source or basis for morality that is beyond their own feelings or internal thoughts on the matter) but then go on to speak about the "evil" of Christians or the Bible or whatever. Some act and think like there is a real moral law but deny it by denying a supreme moral standard or source.0 -
You are saying that atheists have a moral code, but atheists cannot pinpoint the source of this code, yes?
If you mean what I think you mean, the answer is yes. :flowerforyou:
What I'm arguing is that atheists not only cannot pinpoint the source of the code but that they deny its source (God the supreme "mind" from which issues the moral law). The irony is that atheism denies there is an "objective" source of moral law (by "objective" I mean a source or basis for morality that is beyond their own feelings or internal thoughts on the matter) but then go on to speak about the "evil" of Christians or the Bible or whatever. Some act and think like there is a real moral law but deny it by denying a supreme moral standard or source.
Well then, if you mean what you think I mean is what we mean, then...okay! :laugh:
I can only speak on my own personal thoughts behind it: I was not raised in a religious household. I didn't even know what God or Jesus or Christianity was until I was 12 years old...and even then, I had no real knowledge of it until I was about 16-ish. I didn't begin to REALLY seriously study religion until a couple of years ago, and it was my own personal studies. I started taking classes in religion in January of this year, and now I concentrate mostly on studying Buddhism and Taoism, since those 2 are my personal favorites. Anyway...I do not deny that in the Western world, Christianity has played (and continues to play) a major role in our legal codes and many people's morals and values and beliefs. I can strip the laws and morality free from religion, and come to a conclusion that makes sense to me. I don't claim to know or even begin to grasp why my brain knows right from wrong, or why it thinks the way it does...but I also don't care to know. I mean, sure, if I could find the answer to that, then that's cool. But I won't drive myself insane trying to figure it out, and I can't force myself to believe in something that makes no sense to me, just so I can have an answer. If that makes any sense.0 -
A few texts? How about the whole story? Stone unruly teenagers. War crimes. Plagues upon Egypt to punish one mans arrogance. Here's some good ones.
Leviticus 20:9
If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.
20:10 If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
20:13 If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.
Deuteronomy 22:20-1 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house.
Exodus 35:2
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.
On Destroying Other People
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
20:10-17 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
On the Evil of Biblical Law
Ezekiel 20:25-26 I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.
On Slavery & Subjugation of Women
Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men.
2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
Leviticus 25:44-45
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
Jesus, on His Second Coming
Matthew 24:29-34
[T]he sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. . . . They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. . . . I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. [Emphasis added.]
16:27-28
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
And as far as the argument that you have heard nothing today that would make you question God as the source of morality, you have yet to prove that God is the source. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I am not the one making the claim. You are. And no matter what, your argument boils down to that if science has yet to figure something out, it must be God.
You obviously cut and pasted these texts from some website. This is a smokescreen distracting attention from the issue I keep emphasizing but never seems to be taken seriously.
It is not "news" that the Law of Moses prescribes capital punishment for a host of offenses that were seen as corrosive and destructive to their community. What you don't seem to recognize is that these legal codes, like Hammurabi's, are written in ancient legal terminology. Do you realize that judges were to preside over cases of these offenses and they had a variety of options available to them for punishment? Do you realize that capital punishment was rarely used for such cases? Have you taken the time to study the centuries of reflection on these texts in the Hebrew Gemara? If you ever bother to do so, you will find the issues are much deeper than a collection of random texts thrown together on an atheist website indicate.
What is most astonishing, however, is the blaring gap in your reasoning. What justifies your condescending attitude towards these ancient middle-eastern laws? Haven't I asked you a number of times to explain what it is that allows you to condescendingly judge another culture? Why aren't these "laws" just as good as any you believe? What is the source of your moral indignation? The irony is that you, as an atheist, have no grounds to make moral judgments but, here you are, making moral judgments everywhere!
I'm not making an "extraordinary" claim at all. I'm saying intellectual and moral realities belong to a mind. Do you deny this? Where does the logical truth that A equals A or A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense (the principals of identity and non-contradiction) exist? Where does the mathematical judgment that 2 and 2 equals 4 exist? Just like you would say that material bodies in exist in space, so it is that logical truths exist in minds. The reality is, however, that logical truths are not caused by your mind; they are discovered by your mind. That means that their origin or proper source or residence is in a mind beyond your own. The same can be said of moral truths. The moral law imposes itself on your mind (your writings continue to prove this). Where does moral and logical law reside? In physical space? Of course not, they are not physical entities. It is perfectly logical to conclude that moral and logical truth belongs to a mind. Why does this mind have to be God? It would take a while to give the full answer but I'll suggest a few of the ideas I would argue in support of that conclusion. If you sincerely want to understand this, I'm happy to give more explanation. How long is it true that 2 plus 2 is 4? Always. Where is that truth located? Everywhere one thinks about it. Do logical truths depend on matter or space to be true? Of course not. Whatever the origin of logical and moral truths is, it must have commensurate attributes with logic and morality and therefore must be unbounded by time, space and matter, and must be eternal, uncaused and self-existent (or else we get caught in an infinite series of "explanations" that never truly account for themselves). This sounds a lot like what we mean by "God."
I never said that because science can't figure this out that it must be God. Where did I ever say that? I have said that science can't resolve these matters because they are in principal beyond science. You haven't addressed that claim at all. The scientific method, by its very nature, does not address morality. You have deep faith that it will someday do so. I have no such faith simply because morality is outside the range of science since it is not a material entity that can be studied with a microscope (or any other scientific tool). I'm saying that moral law is "objective" and it transcends individual human minds. This means that human minds participate in or somehow share in a moral law that is accessed by the mind (like the senses are "windows" into the sensory world, the sensory world is "objective" and the senses allow us to experience it; the human mind and will "receive" the logical and moral truths that come into our awareness; this means that like there is a sensory world that comes through the senses so there is a moral and logical world that comes through the receptive powers of the mind; since moral and logical truths are mental in nature, they imply a mind).
Yes, I cut and pasted quotes from a website, you asked for quotes, didn't you. It seemed like a more logical choice than typing them or scanning bible pages to my printer, saving them, cutting and then pasting.
I have dodged nothing, you are saying that moral law resides in our mind transending humanity. But once again, if that were the case wouldn't all societies through out history have the same morales. They don't. The keep evolving as the world gets smaller and smaller. But even if you were right, even if this was unmistakeable proof of a divine creator, you still have to convince me since you are a christian that Christ was indeed God, and every other religion through out history had it wrong.
But you said that if I wanted to not generalize and provide specific texts that I should. You said that I had picked a few texts out of the bible out of context and was being cynical. These few texts are but a small handful, but instead of filling up this thread with almost the whole bible, I will just pick one, and you will have to explain to me the morality.
Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Please explain to me the morality of this, how an omnipotent ruler thinks it was ok to beat your slave as long as he could walk in a couple of days. I would like to know that if this is in the bible, and Jesus never forbade slavery, how did you ever come to the understanding that this type of behavior was wrong?0 -
Smoke and mirrors again, Adrian. I will be happy to reply to your last comment when I get to work. In the meantime, it would be helpful in this debate if you would answer the questions I've posed to you as an atheist. I keep explaining and answering your points and questions yet you won't reciprocate.0
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God doesn't want people forced into believing in and loving Him. It's certainly within his power, but thats not what He'a ever wanted He owes no one proof and believers don't owe anyone proof. It's faith. If you can find a Christian who claims to understand all of the mysteries of Christianity, let me know. We can choose to accept God or reject him. That's our will.Really? Then why is there Hell?
Good question!
The highest motivation in following God should not be simply to "not go to hell". The highest motivation in following God should be out of love and respect. That is what God wants from all of us.
Now, as a parent, I want my children to follow my 'commands' out of love and respect for me. However, I will give them consequences if they don't. So, on one hand they have the 'fear' of the consequence, but their highest motivation should be to do as I ask out of respect and love.
As a citizen, if I murder someone, I could get the death penalty. However, I shouldn't refrain from murder just so I won't go to jail and get the death penalty. I should refrain from murder because it is wrong. My highest motivation should not be to avoid the consequence, but the desire to do good.
We should love and follow God's commandments freely, and that is what I believe He wants. If we freely choose not to, we will face consequences.0 -
Smoke and mirrors again, Adrian. I will be happy to reply to your last comment when I get to work. In the meantime, it would be helpful in this debate if you would answer the questions I've posed to you as an atheist. I keep explaining and answering your points and questions yet you won't reciprocate.
What are you talking about. I've been quite honest when I say that there are things that I just don't know. I'm comfortable with the fact I don't know everything. But you specifically asked me to narrow my complaints so you may address them, and then you call them smoke and mirrors. So I want to know why God was so intent on ending the slavery of the hebrews, but had no problem with them owning slaves. Was he racist?0
