Anything Divine in the Bible?

Supports my stance that fundies are as thick as two short planks.Thanks for the laugh Bertit, fair cheered me up.

No, but some including myself observed the hypocricy, hatred, and malice by the Christian community now and the 2000+ years of Christian history as well as in the source of Christianity itself, the Bible and decided not to play a part in this hypocritical, bigotry anymore.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

The argument as I understand it, and I don't often use it:The atheist can have morality. But he has no strong basis for it. It is rather arbitrary. It is like "I like chocolate, you like vanilla."I don't think the theist says that the atheist cannot be moral. I think he argues that it is not solidly grounded in anything.Besides and arbitrary whim, a purely subjective matter of taste, there is not ground for his morality.It is weakly founded ? Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Are you saying that someone more intelligent is always more morally righteous? That is ridiculous!
Surely the more knowingly that evil is commited the more evil the action is morally?
IF God's actions are indeed evil then his intelligence, omniscience, and omnipotence (i.e. his ability to know the result of his actions and to do things differently should he so choose) only add to the evilness of those actions. Not totally. On the basis of "do unto others as they would do unto you" the case for the standard of non-absolute morality I am proposing should be able to be both rationally explained and defended in argument with any intelligent rational being. Including God. If he is both intelligent and rational that is. If you are imposing your will or inflicting upon others in a way that you would object to if the positions were reversed then you are doing wrong. In extreme cases I guess you could could call this "evil". That is my position.If God is intelligent, rational and good why would he not understand and even agree with this position?

This is a strawman argument.Theists (specifically fundamental Christians and other dogmatic religious beliefs) have a tendency to write off non-believers as not having a moral system "solidly grounded" in anything. On the contrary, if we look far enough into human and animal evolution we can see the roadmap of our evolving moral system. The evolutionary drive to survive is readily seen in animal and even human behavior. In lower intelligence animals this drive to survive is instinctive. However more intelligent animals and humans, has the brain has evolved rational thought. In other words biological evolution has created a brain in which beings can make decisions to override this instinctive drive to survive.You are right to say that lower intellegence animals do not have morality in the sense that they are incapable of overriding their base instincts of survival. Thus their behaviors are pretty set and predictable. However, as intilligence and rationality increase, the ability to decide between two or more courses of behavior also increases. Morality in itself is a human created concept which we use to determine which behaviors are acceptable ("good") and which ones are not acceptable ("bad"). Higher intelligence animals do not conceptualize morality in a formal system of acceptable and unacceptable behavior (moral code) as humans do, however they do follow instinctive (and limited culturally transmited behavior in very high intilligent animals i.e. monkeys) rules of acceptable and unacceptable behavior do they not? The greater the brain power an animal has the greater the capability that animal has of countering said behavior determined to be acceptable.What is totally left out of this starkly is emotion. Human (and even animal) emotions evolved alongside and layered on top of the survival drive and are used to help us cope with change and the world around us.What is the benefit of morality to biological evolution? Rationality and increased intelligence increases the survivability of our species and that of many higher intelligence animals. Additionally, self-governing/self-policing members of our own species against a standard of morality is also critical to the survival of our species. Morality tells us how to act and the consequences imposed on these actions.Every individual and every society has its own standard of what is wrong and what is right. So how do we determine whose standards are correct. Again we must go back to our roots and see that what is best for the species as a whole should determine which moral standards we follow.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Speaking as an atheist, my morality is strongly founded. It is based on consequences to other people and myself.A:
Do my actions harm myself?
If so, is it justifiable?
B:
Do my actions harm other people?
If so, are they justifiable?
C:
Do other people's action harm themselves?
If so, are they justifiable?
D:
Do other people's actions harm other people?
If so, are they justifiable?Justification is based on the amount of total good an action causes. The total good has to exceed the total harm. That said, an action that causes more good than harm is not necessarily moral, but is reluctantly, hesitantly, acceptable. Was the hiroshima bombing moral? No. Was the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden or other cities moral? No. Was WWII moral? Germany and the final solution were not, American concentration camps were not. The defeat of the Third Reich was.I haven't thought out the full implications of my system as of yet, and I can very well imagine that it could lead to some interesting statements. Point is, I have a relative moral system that is well-grounded and relatively stable. And funnily enough, it's based partly on the penultimate relativistic moral instruction: do unto others as you would have others do unto you (a la Christ and numerous other religions, cultures, and so forth in the world).

quote:

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Justification is based on the amount of total good an action causes. The total good has to exceed the total harm.

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Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but it seems to me that by your calculus it would be justifiable to kill one person if their organs could be used to save the lives of 3 others.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Precisely what I was talking about . . .those interesting situations that arise from having not fully thought through the implications.The question is, does killing that one person in order to harvest the organs create more good than the persons's death causes harm?I removed a statement from my rough post that now seems as if it should have been left in. Following the bit about examples of moral and immoral actions, I had planned on saying: the only true moral actions are those that cause no or insignificant harm while also causing good. This would mean that the effort to defeat the third reich, while not immoral, is not truly moral, becuase the effort certainly caused a very significant amount of harm.Killing a person to harvest organs to save others is causing significant harm. One death plus potential grief--did the person have family and/or friends who cared for him? How would the others feel about having an organ from someone who was actively killed to obtain the organs so they could live?. One death alone is significant harm in this case. So it is not moral.But is it acceptable? If it leads to more good than harm, my system would answer yes. I'm not sure I could say the action is immoral. I could say it is despicable, that there were other options available that would have caused less harm to achieve the same good. But without knowing the full situation, I can't make a judgement on that. There's probably a slippery slope somewhere in here that could lead us to the final solution yet again.A question remaining is: how do you quantify harm? One way is through deaths, injuries, and assorted statistics. How do you quantify grief? How can you compare grief with the number dead?No wonder there are people who rely on god to tell them what is right and what is wrong. Good thing I've got another (hopefully) 60 plus years to work it out (assuming I can).Edited by kuresu, : you know, this has absolutely nothing to do with bertot. So changed the subtitle to something more a propro.

DA writes:DA I am not ignoring what you are saying or that you are providing exmples of what you consider morality. But you do realize there are people that disagree with yours and the others estimation of what it should be, correct? Secondly, I do not need to address any of the examples, except to say,what do you measure them against. The answer is that you measure them against nothing but your own opinions, whether they are a collection of society or your own opinions. What you describe as morality is simply the present consideration of what is right or wrong. 500 years ago it was acceptable to throw your children to the alligators, for purposes of worship, something you would abhor.Think about it DA. Even the word Morality has no meaning if there is nothing measure it against. Lets use a physical example. The standard is that all living humanoids have one head each on thier shoulders, thats the standard. If there were or has been a person with two heads, this is considered as abnormal, not right, so to speak. In other words there is not a constant mixture of this principle or variations of this norm constantly. Now, if there is no standard in morality as in this example and ethics are different and changing at the same time, there is no standard, correct.This is why concepts such as right, wrong, good and bad are relative, with no omnipotent deity to give them objectivity.Jaywill writes:DA writes:Yes you are correct DA this is not an argument AT ALL. The reason is that it is an obdervation of reality that Jaywill makes. A position that has no validity as the one that you are attempting to defend, needs no argument to demonstrate its fallacy, just observation. That is the point behind Jaywills statement.D BertotEdited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.

Brian writes:Ironically, your comment earlier is the one that launched all this discussion. Since you did not discribe why the Lords statement was comical, I have nothing to respond to, correct?Perhaps you could show how thickness and the Lords comment has application. Do you not like the Lords statement, or are you aggrivated that he made it?D BertotEdited by Bertot, : No reason given.

After making your assertions about what evolution has supposedly done you arrive at this statement?Now are you saying that the problem of a weak purely subjective basis for morality is a strawman argument or is not?When the Christian points out that the atheist's moral ground amounts to a purely subjective matter of taste, you say "That's a strawman argument." But when you point out the same problem to the Theist its not a strawman argument.I don't think you can have it both ways. If the the question is "Whose to tell what is absolutely righteous and what is not?" Then whether a theistic world view or an atheistic world view it is a valid point.Now, I came out of the almost totally "relative" 1960s in the USA. Shortly into the 70s I decided to seriously follow Christ. I was struck early on by this verse in Romans:"But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth upon those who practice such t hings." (Rom. 2:2)This hit me hard. I thought everything was totally relative. Then I come accross this passage which says that "the judgement of God is according to truth ..."There is such a thing as truth. And we have to have some idea of what straight is in order to know that something is crooked. So there is truth in the universe. And within us there is a sense of what is just. Otherwise we could not have the ability to detect what is unjust. And somethings are simply unjust in every society.Where is the society where cowardice is held in honor rather than bravery? Where is the society in which betraying those who were loyal to you is held as a virtue? Where is the society where stealing another man's wife is regarded as noble?There are some mores which do change from society to society. I admit that. But there are also, I think, some human virtues which are universally held as good and others universally held as bad.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Objectivity? And you suggest that some deity provides objectivity?Which one? There are some 4,200 extant world religions, and an untold number of extinct ones.And how does one decide among those often conflicting religions, to determine which (if any) is correct? Evidence? The scientific method? Ouija board? Voices in one's head?Later in your post, you wrote: A couple of thousand years before that it apparently was acceptable to take your child and cut his gizzard out because some deity commanded it. Is that right, wrong, good, or bad?I'll tell you: its wrong and bad. Why? Because it is anti-life, anti-survival, and anti-rational.And I don't care what your, or any other, idols or demons say (or, more precisely, what some person claimed that those idols or demons said).If you disagree with this, as I suspect you might, provide evidence to the contrary. And please, don't bother to provide as evidence what some person claimed the voices in his head told him.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

DA writes:Now imagine given your very beautiful statements above two positions.One, God does exists. Two, God does not exist. If its number one, then the intelligence that is omnipotent or much more advanced will have an even greater degree of what is right or wrong or more benifical. If indeed he is all knowing or he possess all knowledge that is knowable, then he is that standard.If it is number two. Then it is simply matter in motion, physical properties reacting in a physical enviornment. Yes certainly humans can give meaning to thiers and others lives and provide surival techniques to the race.But this is not the point of the present discussion. It started with a few condemning God for his actions. Now in either instance above a human being does not have a platform to make such assertions.But your comments are very eloquent and beautiful. As I read your post you seem to be a very well read individual.D BertotD Bertot

Dances with wolves writes:Wow, the heart that is behind this statement can be felt a long way away even from where you are sitting. There is alot of passion in it and that is good. Now if I could only get you to see that that passion is due to the fact that you have been raised in a certain enviornment, situation and circumstance that drives your passion. If this were 500 years ago, that same passion would be going in another direction,possibly from the positions which you now hold.To demonstrate this point I would say your contention that it is anti-life, will assist you but not the deer or bunny, correct You see its all from whos perspective you approach it, correct? Your human perspective is benificial for you but not for that animal you consume for food, correct?D Bertot

Correct, but in the last 500 years we have had The Enlightenment, which means we no longer have to kowtow to the various idols and demons, nor obey the various shamans who claim to speak for them lest we be tortured or burned at the stake.And good riddance too.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.