Is God Self-Evident

I'll start by pointing ut that your "facts" are better labelled assumptions.

quote:

---

Let's have a look see. We're assuming God exists and we're taking a look at the (posited) mechanism of salvation.

​

Fact: God exists.

​

Fact: There is absolute right and wrong. What he says is right is right and what he says is wrong is wrong.

---

Which is it ? Is there absolute right and wrong or just decree from God ?

quote:

---

Fact: He lets you know what right is and what wrong is by way of conscience.

---

Since your God seems to be unspeakable evil to me I think you have a problem there.

quote:

---

Fact: you don't need to believe in Gods existance/existance of absolute right and wrong to know what absolute right and wrong is.

---

Fact: Nobody knows what absolute right and wrong are. The best you can get is a consensus opinion, and that will only agree on broad details.

quote:

---

Fact: This knowledge is suppressible by your will. If you will to suppress it consciences restraining influence is cut and you will do what is evil. If you don't suppress the conscience you will be restrained from doing evil by it.

---

At least you acknowledge that much.

quote:

---

Fact: Your will is a key element in your doing evil or no.

​

Fact: The are two destinations to be arrived at wrt to the evil you (and I) engage in. You can either end up despairing at yourself and the rotteness that you (hopefully) come to realise lies at the core of yourself. Or you can avoid arrival at this conclusion by continued suppression of the fact that evil is central to your actions and motivations.

---

My conscience says that your "fact" is the lie of a sick and evil religion.

quote:

---

God is the one who's attempting to steer you to the conclusion that you are rotten/hopeless/lost. If, via that mechanism, you come to believe that you are rotten/hopeless/lost then you will believe both God and the facts about yourself. All without having to believe in Gods existance.

---

It seems pretty clear that your "God" is on the side of evil. And what you are describing is a standard cult tactic.

quote:

---

o blind belief style faith is required. Just the kind of faith that is underscored by the facts. The decision isn't that you believe in God, it's that you believe Gods argument - even though you don't yet believe in God.

---

Except that blind belief IS needed - and likely a very strong one. Certainly I would need to suppress my conscience to accept your religion. Which shows that your "facts" are not all facts.

quote:

---

Answer the following questions and points please, if God is Evil.

---

Of course I am not saying that God is evil. I am saying that Iano's idea of God is evil - and I judge that by my conscience - and Iano says that that is a communication from God.So, if Iano is right on that score it's not MY judgement you are arguing with - it's God's.

quote:

---

The first fact is indeed an assumption. Necessary to lay out the subsequence mechanism

---

But NOT sufficient. Therefore they are all assumptions,

quote:

---

They are the same thing. Absolute zero means there is no place to go to find colder. God is the place to go if you want to find out what's good and evil.

---

No, they are not the same. The question is whether there is a real absolute good and evil or just God's decrees.

quote:

---

Structural and insurmountable flaw-in-your-thinking warning coming up. God eg: killing is not comparable to us killing. We're taking something which doesn't belong to us (a life). God is taking something which does belong to him. Comparing the two is apples and pears territory. Besides, your argument has no absolute basis to stand on and is thus subjective. The only absolute basis available (says fact 1 (assumed)) is going to disagree with you.

---

Well you've just illustrated several flaws in YOUR thinking. Firstly I wasn't thinking of mere killing - not even genoicde - we both know that yout God is infinitely worse than that. Secondly the whole notion of owning humans is morally repugnant - as is taking back a gift, so it seems pretty clear that you are suppressing your conscience. Most importantly my "subjective basis" is the same thing that you call knowledge of absolute morals communicated to us by God. We can also add that your "fact 1" ("God exists" does NOT contradict my statement.

quote:

---

If God exists (we've assumed) then you're absolutely wrong.

---

Wrong. If God exists he could quite possibly view your religion as a vile blasphemy. ANd if you are right that is exaclty ehat He tells me.

quote:

---

Fact: that had nothing to do with the point being made.

---

On the contrary your point was that we knew what absolute right and wrong were - and we do not. And - in condemning my conscience as a mere subjective judgement you agree.

quote:

---

My fact predicts this very kind of thing...

---

No, they don't. Which is why you have had to contradict them to try to argue against me.

quote:

---

Try it this way then. I'll define " absolute good" as that which conforms to God's will and "absolute evil" as that which doesn't. Clearly God can only do good by this definition (because God can't act counter to Gods' will) and when he decrees x action is good it is good because it conforms to his will.

---

OK, there is NO absolute good and evil. So that's another of your "facts" that you disagree with.

quote:

---

You haven't pointed out a flaw here, you've expressed a very subjective and unsubstantiated opinion

---

But I did point out a genuine flaw. You jumped to the conclusion that I was talking about killing and based your argument on that. You were wrong. There's your flaw.

quote:

---

It's not a question of morality if there was conditions placed on possession of life from the outset. Adam was warned and the consequences rolled out..

---

Aside from the fact that that disagrees with the Bible - and creates some severe theological problems. At least it does for people who are not prepared to suppress their consciences in the name of theology.

quote:

---

The fact that you aren't in a position to objectivize your knowledge of good and evil has no bearing on the objectivity of that knowledge. If God exists then there's objective good/evil as defined above.

---

In other words, not at all.

quote:

---

If you've been given access to this information then you know objective good/evil - even though you don't know it's objective knowledge you've got.

---

According to you, I haven't.

quote:

---

Do people have different consciences? If so, how would we tell*? Remember, the mechanism of salvation posed suggests that people can suppress conscience in order to:

​

a) carry out evil (suppression of conscience telling us what we "ought to do")

​

b) justify the evil done (suppression of conscience telling us that we didn't do as we ought to have done = suppression of guilt)

​

By this means will you arrive at a situation where different people have different moralities. It doesn't mean they weren't/aren't equipped with the same conscience at the outset.

---

The interesting thing is the contradiction in your claims.On the one hand you say that our conscience is the "voice of God" telling us what is good and evil and that suppressing it is wrong.On the other hand - whenever a conscience says anything which contradicts your beliefs you say that it is a subjective judgement which should be suppressed in favour of your nihilistic doctrine.In another thread you say that the love of truth is needed for salvation, In this thread it is apparent that you have no love for the truth. preferring the delusion of dogma.

The contradiction is quite simple. You claim that the human conscience is a communication from God - but you also claim that it is a mere subjective judgement that can - and should be ignored.You say that suppressing our consciences leads to evil and then insist that we should suppress them whenever they say anything that you don't like.Then again you preach that God is good - but you mean that God is an amoral tyrant - and THAT is your "good".

quote:

---

You're welcome to quote me saying same. Given that you won't find me saying anything of the sort (except by convolution) we might as well wind back to some agreed point in discussion and re-progress.

---

I've already pointed out what my conscience tells me - and you rejected it as a mere subjective opinion.

quote:

---

Indeed. More correctly: I say that suppressing conscience is the act of our will whereby God's restraining hand is shook off in order that the attractions that sin offer can be obtained.

---

And the clear need for you to suppress your conscience to follow your religion is one of the problems you need to address.

quote:

---

You were always God-antagonistic. You appear to have become rabidly so since I last visited EvC. Irrationally so, given the poor state of your argumentation.

---

I'm not antagonistic to God. I am following MY conscience - which tells me that your religion is evil - and by Christian standards, blasphemous. Nor am I being irrational in pointing out the contradictions and the amorality of your beliefs.

"God is self-evident because the Bible says so."Think about it.

quote:

---

The post was directed at someone else who believes the Bible to tell it as it is.
Context.

​

Think about it.

---

ROFL !No. That doesn't make it any less silly.