Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Euthypro Dilemna
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 7 of 181 (537481)
11-28-2009 11:15 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Taz
11-28-2009 7:11 PM


Taz writes:
Get ready for some very long and jargonic posts coming from buzsaw, iano, and other theists here. Watch this, haha.
Actually I tried posting the Euthyphro Dilemma several times on EVC to no avail (i.e. Message 188 and Message 62. The first time no one responded to my post and the second Iano states
Iano writes:
Fortunately, the God of Christianity predates Plato by a decent amount. And He is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.
And that was it, on the subject of the Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma.
I would be surprised if anyone dillegently digs down and honestly and intelectually addresses it here much less fundamentalists like Iano and Buzzsaw. But who knows maybe someone will provide some new incite on it.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Taz, posted 11-28-2009 7:11 PM Taz has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by iano, posted 11-29-2009 4:52 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 22 of 181 (537644)
11-30-2009 1:24 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by iano
11-29-2009 4:52 PM


Perhaps I'm just not understanding the conundrum correctly in order to see what the dilemma is. The above seems to resolve things easily enough. Your set up of things, DA, was clearly expressed whereas T&U's version seems a bit wooly and loose in comparison (no offence) so I won't go into that version of it here
Ok, I mispoke, you did address some of what I wrote but we got off track on the whole dilemma. So I will go back and readdress your post from my previous thread about the Euthypro Dilemma:
Iano writes:
Me writes:
If God commands what is ‘good’ because it is good in of itself, then he bases his decision on what to command on what is already morally good outside of himself..
Firstly, I've changed your word 'wills' to the italicisd word 'command' three lines up so as to accurately reflect the conundrum..
So are you admitting that God does not dictate what is good but only wills (wants/desires/wishes) what is good? If so than that means he is not the ultimate source of what is good. Or are using some other obscure meaning for the word 'will'.
Iano writes:
Secondly, how do you conclude that his expressing outward to us what is good (by way of information) necessitates that good being/existing outside/apart from himself. I mean, if goodness is sourced within God and he tells us about it...
But if God is the source of goodness i.e. God=good, we in essense have no basis to determine what is good and what is not good. We can only determine in essense what is "from God" and what is "not from God". This in essense proves the second horn of this dillema in that we have no way of determining if God is good or not, instead we have to rely 100% on blind faith that everything God is telling us is correct and "good" with no real way of verifying this to be true. Furthermore, goodness would then be completely arbitrary and merely based on God's whim and capriciousness. And no, you cannot say that he is not evil because you have no outside standard to hold him to. To do otherwise would be arguing in circles.
Based on this, the only standard you could hold God to would be whether he was consistent or not, not whether he is good or not since by definition God=good. So the entire concept of goodness becomes moot and undefinable using this reasoning.
Furthermore if God choose it good to enslave people, murdering children, ethnicide and other attrocities, using your reasoning you would have no ground to stand on to say otherwise and indeed these actions and behaviors are directly attributed to your God in the Bible.
Therefore calling God good is equivolant to calling God "God" and does nothing to show why God is good since goodness does not exist apart from God. It is circular reasoning.
Thirdly, if God is the source of good then we can say 'it is good because it is commanded by God' as a matter of logical conclusion.
This is not a logical conclusion as you have no moral frame of reference to determine if God is good as explained above. To define a term by itself amounts to circular reasoning.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by iano, posted 11-29-2009 4:52 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by iano, posted 11-30-2009 7:13 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 43 of 181 (538236)
12-04-2009 5:51 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by iano
11-30-2009 7:13 AM


Sorry about the long absence, work keeps me pretty busy until the weekends. To get back on-topic I am going to rebutt Iano's earlier arguments below:
Iano writes:
Me writes:
If God wills what is ‘good’ because it is good in of itself, then he bases his decision on what to command on what is already morally good outside of himself.. If moral goodness exists before God issues any commands, then moral goodness is independent of God’s commands. Therefore God’s commands aren’t the source of morality, but merely a source of information about a preexisting moral code.
My understanding of God willing something is that it will happen. God can also want something to happen - but his wanting it doesn't mean it will happen. For example: God wanting that none should perish doesn't mean none will perish. Some will perish, even though God doesn't want that they do.
Understood, but you are not addressing the core of the Euthypro Dilemma. Whether God wills 'good' to happen or commands 'good' to happen is irrelevant to the actual source of goodness. The question is, does 'goodness' exist independently of God or not. If it exists independently than God is not the ultimate source of goodness. If goodness is derived/sourced from God than 'goodness' has no meaning outside the definition of God himself and therefore God can arbitrarily call anything 'good' including what most humans consider evil atrocities i.e. murder, slavery, ethnocide, infanticide, rape, torture, etc and therefor we would have no moral backing to call these acts by God 'evil'. That is the gist of the Euthypro Dilemma.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
But if God is the source of goodness i.e. God=good, we in essence have no basis to determine what is good and what is not good. We can only determine in essence what is "from God" and what is "not from God".
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. IF God is the source of goodness THEN he is the basis against which we measure. IF he is not THEN he is not. You cannot suppose God the standard in one breath (the IF condition in your statement assumed true) then state that you have no standard available, in the other.
You seem to be saying that if God is indeed the source of good then we have no other standard by which to measure him to find out whether he is indeed good or not. Which is a nonsense: the nature of standards is to be definitional. We either accept the definition they posit or we don't. You don't 'prove' definitions as such.
Why is this nonsense?
I am not trying to prove the definition of God=good. I assume that you as a Christian already believe God=good. What I am doing is showing that by using this proposition you cannot say that God=good because you have no method for determining whether Godactually equals good or not. In other words you have no way of defining goodness seperately from the definition of God. It would be like saying Bob is a good guy because Bob is a good guy. It makes no sense. You have no way of determining whether Bob is good because you automatically assume he is good without the means or ability to use a standard to measure whether he was good or not.
The standard of goodness either lays with your god or it does not. If not than the logical source for the standard of goodness lies with man himself and therefore we can use man’s standard of morality to judge whether or not your god is good or not based on man's general definition of goodness.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
This in essence proves the second horn of this dillema in that we have no way of determining if God is good or not, instead we have to rely 100% on blind faith that everything God is telling us is correct and "good" with no real way of verifying this to be true.
I think I'm seeing the point(lessness) of this dilemma. What you are saying is that we aren't God. And because we are not, we cannot pull ourselves to the absolute height (independant from God) to know what is true - including whether God is good.
You don’t even have to pull yourself up to his level. You have no standard to measure whether God is good or not other than God himself, which leads to circular reasoning.
It seems we are limited to experiencing what is true by virtue of alignment with Gods view of things: I view greed as evil because he views greed as evil.
The question becomes why do you believe that (whatever event, behavior, thought or act) is evil just because he views (whatever event, behavior, thought or act) as evil?
Is greed actually evil though? Who cares: evil is merely a word to describe acting greedily. And greed just a word to describe acting in a way which puts your own interests over others to excessive degrees. And excessive...
It matters not how greed is defined if you view anything that God says is good or evil. He could say putting on lipstick is evil and you would have to call it evil because he says so. You as a Christian have no choice in what he determines good or evil much less rationalizing why something is good or evil. Those who do not ascribe to God as the source of all morality are not bound to these restrictions and can determine what is good or evil based on human collective norms, values, ethics etc.
God uses the word "good" to describe things that are experienced in a 'positive' sense: patience, kindness, love, joy, peace.
Now you are just substituting word’s like positive for good. This does not get you off the hook on how can you determine whether God or his actions/behaviors are 'good' or not.
If someone else wants to use the word "evil" to describe those same experiences then so what?
You have no method for determine whether something is good or evil other than stating whether something is approved or disapproved by God. If God calls slavery, murder, or any other (fill in the blank) atrocity, good or acceptable you do to no matter what if you believe God is the source of all goodness.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
Furthermore, goodness would then be completely arbitrary and merely based on God's whim and capriciousness. And no, you cannot say that he is not evil because you have no outside standard to hold him to. To do otherwise would be arguing in circles.
As pointed out, I prefer to steer clear of definitional jousting due to its pointlessness. Better to consider what God does and examine it in the light of what mankind generally considers good/evil.
See how So now you are using man’s morality to judge God’s behavior. That is precisely the point I am trying to make. By your own ambition, implied or otherwise here, it is impossible to prove whether God’s actions are good or not without using an outside standard. In this case a human one.
It's not an absolute measure of anything
Of course not because human standards are relative and mutable (capable of being changed), while your god’s are supposedly not.
- but might give us enough to get an inkling into any harmony that might exist between mans version of goodness and Gods version of goodness.
Or that the morality of all of religion’s supernatural gods are a projection of man’s own system of morality.
That loose standard of ours (which would find whimsy and capriciousness bad) shouldn't find God guilty of these things although...
Yet it does.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
Based on this, the only standard you could hold God to would be whether he was consistent or not, not whether he is good or not since by definition God=good. So the entire concept of goodness becomes moot and undefinable using this reasoning.
...examining consistancy would require our insight into all issues that were involved in God acting this way or that at a particular time. We might agree globally that he is consistantly hating of sin however. And consistantly exercising a degree of patience with sinners.
Actually no, all we have to do is look in the Bible at all the references of your God and see if his moral standards, commands and behavior are consistent or not. In many people’s opinions including mine, they are not, though I know you disagree. However, this would require a separate thread to discuss this fully.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
Furthermore if God choose it good to enslave people, murdering children, ethnicide and other attrocities, using your reasoning you would have no ground to stand on to say otherwise and indeed these actions and behaviors are directly attributed to your God in the Bible.
Ah...but my arguing for Gods goodness uses the only other standard we have available to use:
Says who?
the shaky, flaky but nonetheless useful standard of man made in the image of God.
Unsubstantiated opinion.
And that argument/standard frequently finds arguments against God flailing .. after a while.
Unsubstantiated opinion.
For example: stealing is considered wrong because we are taking something that doesn't belong to us.
You make this too easy. By the definition you give above taking something that doesn’t belong to us, I could find many examples where even you would not consider wrong i.e. picking up a wallet dropped by someone on the street, finding a lost child, etc. These acts just described are not wrong. It is what is done after these initial acts that determine whether they are socially acceptable (‘right’) or not (‘wrong’).
Also what about police, military and other authorities confiscating (‘stealing’ according to your definition) property of criminals and other people on the wrong side of the law?
What about a child or adult in a 3rd world country stealing food and water to survive or keep their families alive?
What about stealing away pets, children and property from other people to prevent those people from abusing them or themselves? How does this figure into your black and white, right or wrong view of God’s law?
Iano writes:
God cannot steal because everything belongs to him - including our lives.
So if God tells you (or the Israelites) to murder their neighbors, that is acceptable?
This latter deals with all the above hyperbole in that God cannot murder (which is a law from God governing mans dealing with another mans life (which isn't the first mans property) - not Gods dealing with mans' life (which is God's property).
Yet many times (though not always) in the Bible God directs others to do his dirty work for him i.e. Israelites kill children and babies of other ethnic groups. Yet, according to you this is ok because God can do whatever the hell he wants without question.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
Therefore calling God good is equivolant to calling God "God" and does nothing to show why God is good since goodness does not exist apart from God. It is circular reasoning.
Definitions are, like I say, circular. As to arguments? Well the above stealing/murder argument is a start. And I find nothing evil in God killing - not according to any standard that men can correctly apply to the issue.
You find nothing wrong with God killing innocent children and babies, advocating slavery and even selling your children as sex slaves?
It just occurs to me that whilst the unbeliever has no way to establish absolutely whether God is good
Like I said before we can compare our socially accepted behavior to those ascribed to your god in the Bible to determine whether they are 'acceptable' i.e. 'good' or 'not acceptable' 'evil.
(and can at best only apply the common standard of man as honestly as he can) the believer is in a different position.
Actually it is the other way around. The nonbeliever can say why your god is not good based upon his own human derived standards. The believer cannot. He has no standard to independently verify whether his god is good or not .
Iano writes:
The believer has direct access to God - in the sense that God can reveal His view of things to the believer
Reveal how?
and so the believer can see things from Gods perspective and so become part of the Absolute view on goodness/evil.
By what means?
Again, we are dealing with definitions only - but given that I'll spend eternity in what is definitionally described as bliss, I'm not supposing to argue with definitions.
Meaning you have no way of defending your position. You automatically assume God=good with no method to rationally defend this position.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by iano, posted 11-30-2009 7:13 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by iano, posted 12-05-2009 2:49 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 45 of 181 (538320)
12-05-2009 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by iano
12-05-2009 2:49 PM


Iano writes:
1) I'm stating God=good.
Understood. This is the definition most Christians and many other religious people would ascribe to.
In other words, I'm working off one possible definition of "good" that goes something like "good = that which God does".
Rgr, understood.
This means the above part of the supposed dilemma is the one that would apply
Agreed. Let's move on shall we.
That God is the source of good doesn't necessarily mean arbitrariness (in the sense: like a candle in a breeze).
The definition of arbitrary as descibing a person or entity, in this case God, is "not restrained or limited in the exercise of power: ruling by absolute authority". Would this not describe the definition of your God? Is he not by this very definition, 'arbritary', meaning that there is no higher source, law, etc which can dictate how he behaves? By the way the behavior of a fame of a candle flickering in the breeze is not arbitrary as it is ultimately dictated by the physical 'laws' of the universe.
He could be consistant in his considerations of what he finds good and evil.
True he could be, but consistancy does not define whether something is good or evil. However, based on the stories of the Bible I would have to disagree that your Christian god of the Bible is consistant in very much except in being inconsistent.
3) Of course this definition could mean God finds murder and rape "good"
Yes, I agree, using this horn of the dilemma would demonstate what you just said.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
If goodness is derived/sourced from God than 'goodness' has no meaning outside the definition of God himself and therefore God can arbitrarily call anything 'good' including what most humans consider evil atrocities i.e. murder, slavery, ethnocide, infanticide, rape, torture, etc and therefore we would have no moral backing to call these acts by God 'evil'. That is the gist of the Euthypro Dilemma.
What is the dilemma here?
Here is a good investigation of the word dilemma:
Although some commentators insist that dilemma be restricted to instances in which the alternatives to be chosen are equally unsatisfactory, their concern is misplaced; the unsatisfactoriness of the options is usually a matter of how the author presents them. What is distressing or painful about a dilemma is having to make a choice one does not want to make.
So the difficult choice aka dilemma, in the Euthyphro Dilemma is in trying to determine how goodness is derived from a an all-powerful being such as God. Most Christians choose the second horn of this dilemma but as discussed before if they choose to do so they have no way of independently determining whether God is inherently 'good' or not.
Of course the easy way out is to say that God is not the source of all goodness or that God does not exist in the first place and that our system of morality is derived from humans themselves.
All you seem to be saying is that if goodness is defined as what God does then we have a moral basis for calling what he does evil.
No I am not saying this. The moral base for calling what God does is evil comes from human standards not from God's standards. If I where a Christian I would have to call everything God does as good no matter how henious it would be from human standards.
But what he does wouldn't be evil, by definition.
By your definition, not mine.
And if this person or that person thought otherwise, they could only be doing so if they utilise some other definition of good - in swhich case they would have a moral basis for declaring God evil.
Agreed.
Therefor the real question is: why should you believe anything God says in the first place, much less worship and obey him? If you have no way of independently determining if God is good as Christians believe, why follow him?
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by iano, posted 12-05-2009 2:49 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by iano, posted 12-05-2009 7:16 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 47 of 181 (538342)
12-05-2009 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by iano
12-05-2009 7:16 PM


Iano writes:
Me writes:
So the difficult choice aka dilemma, in the Euthyphro Dilemma is in trying to determine how goodness is derived from an all-powerful being such as God. Most Christians choose the second horn of this dilemma but as discussed before if they choose to do so they have no way of independently determining whether God is inherently 'good' or not.
They have no independent way for them to determine that God exists - other than God indicating to them that he does.
And how does he indicate his existence to them?
And that isn't a dilemma.
I never said determining if God exists is a dillema. The Euthypro Dillema is about the ultimate source of morality (good and evil) not the existence or non-existence of God.
Iano writes:
I'm afraid I just can't see what the difficulty is. "God is good" is a definition - whether God approves of rape, incest, murder is neither here nor there when it comes to that definition.
So are you saying that it is ok that God approves/condones rape, incest, murder, etc? And yes, from a human perspective these acts are normally considered socially unacceptable/wrong/evil.
Sorry, I mistyped in a critical place. I've changed the word 'have' to 'haven't. It should make the rest of my point clearer if you fancy going back and re-considering?
Well, if you accept that whatever God does is good and whatever he opposes is evil than you have no method of rationalizing what is good and evil other than God. This is acceptable for Christians like yourself but than if someone challenges the behavior of your god like in him flooding the world and killing everyone except for a select few or damming everyone to hell because of original sin caused by Adam and Eve, than you have no choice but to call it good. Even when God advocates slavery, infanticide and ethnicide in the Bible, you have no choice but to call it good. Behavior which is normally acceptable by nearly everyone such as helping other human beings and being charitible have no moral backing for the Christian other than because God says it is good. And the same for the flip side i.e. bad/evil behavior.
Correction: according to his definition, not yours. I'm merely passing on what he says about himself.
Or so you say. What evidence do you have to back this up?
This "independent verification' gig is looking a bit shabby DA. What 'dilemma' if the thing I apparently can't do doesn't amount to a hill of beans? What I can't do is verify if God inherently manages to match each persons subjective notiongs as to what 'good' is?
The dissemenation of God's standard of goodness to humans is irrelevent to this 'Euthpro Dilemma' dialog. The Dilemma only stems on the ultimate source for this goodness.
And your question: because what I truly regard as good happens to coincide with what God does and says (in the sense of it feeling right and proper).
Yet it feels right and proper to oppose what I deem a horendous, evil god of the Bible. How do you know I am not right and you are wrong? How do you know that the god of the Bible is good?
This arises, in all likelyhood, from God-life imparted to me on account of my being born again. Receiving God into your life means you begin to see things the way he sees them.
Been there, done that.
I'm to become more and more the image and likeness of my father so it's little wonder I see good as he see's good (when I'm not sinning that is).
Yet, I see behavior by your God in the Bible that would be considered inaccusable by today's moral standards.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by iano, posted 12-05-2009 7:16 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by iano, posted 12-06-2009 4:25 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 51 of 181 (538383)
12-06-2009 8:22 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by iano
12-06-2009 4:25 AM


Iano writes:
Me writes:
And how does he indicate his existence to them?
I never said determining if God exists is a dillema. The Euthypro Dillema is about the ultimate source of morality (good and evil) not the existence or non-existence of God.
Fair enough. I was merely making the point that independent verification isn't something the lack of which renders a dilemma.
The lack of independent verification makes it a dilemma to the religious believer because they have no way of determining good and evil apart from their perspective god's behavior. There god can call murdering innocent children good for no reason whatsoever and they have no choice but to call it good. That is a moral dillemma for the religious believer is it not?
I don't say that God approves/condones (in the approving sense of that word) rape/murder.
Yet it is in the Bible that he does. Or are you going to plead Nixon's defense for God's actions:
Richard Nixon writes:
Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
So is God above his own laws? He can make and break them at will? That is called being capricious and morally inconsistent which I thought was not possible since God is the absolute standard and never changes. It is remarkable that Christians call atheists and non-believers moral relativists when their God is the epitome of moral relativity changing his moral standards at will throughout the Bible.
If he did and good was still defined as what God did/is then I unlikely consider God good according to another definition - say humanities general definition (which I also share)
(I think humanities sense of good/evil closely aligns with Gods sense of good/evil in many regards: especially when your dealing with man and his aspirational view on good and evil. When it comes to man and his own interests then even mans sense of good/evil frequently goes by the wayside)
I am sorry but I did not see another definition of good in what you just posted just more rephrasing what you earlier stated. Please elaborate.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
Or so you say. What evidence do you have to back this up?
Sorry, I thought we were assuming the Bible Gods word for the sake of argument.
Assuming God's word is what? When did I every assume anything about the Bible? All I assumed is that your equate your god=good. The only thing that I assume from the Bible is that the Bible is an accurate depiction of the philosophical background for Christians and that is where Christians derive their moral standards from. That is all I assume. I do not have to assume it to be true to argue my points concerning the Euthypro Dillemma. If so show me why.
The Euthupro Dillemma is not a dillemma for the un-believer but for the believer. It is you that has to get around the sticky subject of absolute morality. The non-believer has an easy way out by saying that morality is not absolute much less an ultimate source such as your god.
Iano writes:
Me writes:
Yet it feels right and proper to oppose what I deem a horendous, evil god of the Bible. How do you know I am not right and you are wrong? How do you know that the god of the Bible is good?
We're back to this non-dilemma. The word 'good' has no meaning in this conversation. And you ask how I know God is a word that has no meaning?
I never said that God is a word with no meaning. It has much meaning to the believers that believe it. I just do not believe in this god much less him being good or having any meaning whatsoever.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by iano, posted 12-06-2009 4:25 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by iano, posted 12-06-2009 3:01 PM DevilsAdvocate has not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 80 of 181 (538563)
12-07-2009 10:23 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by iano
12-07-2009 5:46 PM


Iano's Rationalization of Murdering His Own Family
Iano writes:
hooah212002 writes:
It's not about what I think. I am talking about YOU KILLING YOUR FAMILY. You can justify that? Honestly think about doing it. Really. Imagine it. Now. Stabbing your mom in the chest. Chopping your fathers head off because "god told me to".
Really?
Why not? I'm assuming you're back to it being God who tells me so. Not a delusion, not an invisible God, but the Creator of the Universe and everything in it. Why wouldn't do as he says - especially if I believe he is the goodest thing there possibly can be?
You know Hitler used this very same rationality to murder millions of people.
Adolph Hitler writes:
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kamf writes:
What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.
Adolf Hitler in a speech on 12 April 1922 writes:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kamf writes:
I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work.
Yes, yes I know I just surcumbed to Godwin's Law but I believe this is warranted here.
It is rather disgusting your justification of such acts Iano. I have lossed all respect I have for you. Truley disgusting.
hooah212002 writes:
I am talking about YOU KILLING YOUR FAMILY.
Iano writes:
Why wouldn't do as he says - especially if I believe he is the goodest thing there possibly can be?
And you call non-believers perverted.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by iano, posted 12-07-2009 5:46 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by iano, posted 12-08-2009 4:04 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 84 of 181 (538595)
12-08-2009 5:47 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by iano
12-08-2009 4:04 AM


Re: Iano's Rationalization of Murdering His Own Family
In Hitlers case we don't know whether God actually instructed Hitler or not. All we have is Hitlers claim.
And all we have from your proposition that God is good are your unsubstantiated claims. What is the difference? You have no method for determining independently that God is good. It is just your assumption. You have yet to provide any verifiable evidence that your god is good. None. And calling it a definition of God only leads to circular reasoning. You assume he is good with no way of knowing this to be true.
So the two cases aren't comparable. All you seem to be looking at is the output - irrespective of the input.
Why are they not comparable?
How do you know the input: God speaking to you is different than God speaking to Hitler?
And measuring that output against your own notions of good/evil. You vs. God
Right, because what other moral standard can I compare God too? Now when I say my own notion of good/evil realize that this is a compendium of accumulated ethics from the dawn of time including but not all-encompassing JudeoChristian values, not something I thought up of overnight. Now if you want to go into specifically how or where all my moral standards come from that would be a seperate issue which I don't mind discussing in another thread. BTW, it wouldn't be Me vs. God from my perspective. It would be my moral values vs. those of the imagined god described in the Bible.
There is, as already pointed out, no dilemma for me as a believer in plumping for Gods view of good and evil and not yours.
There is no dilemma for you because you brainwash yourself into thinking there is not but for the rational, moral person (believer or not) there is certainly a dillema here. How can you determine God is good? Like I said before baseless assumptions do not make a definition i.e. God-good, true.
I should add at this point that I think it extremely unlikely that God would ask any such thing. We're only dealing with a logical hypothetical and should bear that in mind. Logically hypothetically, cows can jump over the moon
But you have no way of prooving that God would never ask this to happen, do you? Or do you know the mind of God? If the God of the universe came down and told you to kill your family, you would do so without hesitation, would you not? For me, I would not if I had any ability to resist I would do so. That to me is the difference between me and you.
Sure (and believers too, in so far as we don't conform to Gods' will). Good/morality/perversion - all are related to God-the-standard.
According to you.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by iano, posted 12-08-2009 4:04 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by iano, posted 12-08-2009 6:29 AM DevilsAdvocate has not replied
 Message 86 by hooah212002, posted 12-08-2009 6:30 AM DevilsAdvocate has not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 105 of 181 (538902)
12-11-2009 12:35 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by iano
12-11-2009 9:09 AM


Iano writes:
Rather than speak of definitions, let me speak of a.k.a. (also known as). For example, one can hold up a concoction of ingredients and say that this concoction is also known as Coca-Cola. Similarily, God holds up Gods motivations, actions, nature, etc. and says these are also known as 'good'. Good is, in a sense, a trademark of God ("why do you call me good" said Jesus "only God is good") in that it's a word used to describe his attributes and actions.
This does not resolve anything. In fact it leads us back to asking: Why is God (God's actions, behavior, motivations, etc) good? I see this is going nowhere and you absolutely refuses to acknowledge there is any logical disconnect here, which to any rational person there is.
However, I think the real issue here has more to do with the moral consistency of God's behavior than the definition of goodness, since the definition of good in the religious person's case is meaningless outside the definition of God and results in circular reasoning.
You (and other religious people) state that God is good however many non-believers disagree even when using there humanistic definition of the term good aka socially and morally acceptable (not the religious circular reasoning term good) as describing the God of the Bible. Non-believers see a hyporcitical, egotistical, tyrant who does not go by the same commands and laws that he supposedly teaches (or more realistically his followers promote). There is a moral disconnect when many of us see when we read the Bible, both from an internal (consistency within the Bible itself) and external (what is being taught in Churches and other places) perspective. That is the crux of this issue in my opinion.
Iano writes:
It's also a word used to describe actions of those of us who act in accord with Gods will (as as result of Gods influence). 'Good' produced under licence, as it were, by those made in the image and likeness of God.
But why? Why is it good? Why is God good? That is the question you cannot answer? Why, because you cannot rely on non-supernatural explanations (i.e. the evolution of our ethical systems through human history and the rationale for why society considers something good or bad) for morality, you must by your own admission defer all moral judgements to the standard of God which is God himself, no questions asked.
Would this resolve any dilamma which asks a believer how does he know God is good?
That is a big fat No! You didn't answer why you think God is good. You just assert that he is with no real explanation why. And the answer is that without referencing an external moral standard you have no method for determining if he is good or not. It is logically impossible. That is what Modulus and I are trying to explain to you. You cannot define something by itself. A rational definition or explanation must refer to something outside of itself or it results in circular reasoning.
If so, the question turns to what's left: how does what God sees as good relate to what man sees as good.
But according to you everything God does and says is good, so what difference does it make what man sees is good? If God is the moral compass than it matters not what we think, say or do in relation to this moral absolute. God could say wear pink underwear and jump off a bridge and you would have no choice but to call it 'good'.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by iano, posted 12-11-2009 9:09 AM iano has not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 108 of 181 (538937)
12-11-2009 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by iano
12-11-2009 3:11 PM


I thought I had escaped the condundrum by inserting the notion "aka". The original conundrum asks "how do you know what God does is good?". The answer is; "what God does" is aka "good". That's how I know.
That is not an answer. That is like saying how do I know the Easter Bunny is good? Because good is what the Easter Bunny does? You can plug anything you want into this logical fallacy and it would still make absolutely no sense and be a logical fallacy of arguing using circular reasoning.
But we're not dealing with Chumbra, Rhumbra or even Chrumba. We're dealing with eg: God (a person) expressing (a concept we all understand) wrath (another concept we understand) against (in opposition to, contra) evil (evil=that which opposes God's will).
Those ingredients, not at all Mumbo Chumbro, are aka 'good'
Why?
His nature, I am supposing. His nature seems to oppose that which is contra his nature. Like a positive wave tending to cancel a negative one. Our own idea of good seems to follow suit. Because we love children we hate that which is anti-loving children. We hate paedophilia thus. What motivates our doing as we do regarding paedophilia? Our natures, it seems (in the case we hate paedophilia)
Ahh, there is the crux. We can speak of our nature because we know our own nature. However, you have no method for determining much less judging God's nature because he is an absolute and is supposedly not subject to our morals or our concept of goodness. Like I said before if he told you to wear pink underwear and jump off a bridge, or murder your own children, or anything else you as a human would think is immoral or wrong, as a Christian you would have no leg to stand on to question him.
By 'right' you presumably mean 'good'. But if we insert good as an 'aka' then we are left with "God does thing because they are the things he does". Which I suppose is the case - but it doesn't tell us anything useful.
Than why do you and all the religious people call your God's behavior good? The concept of 'good' definately means something apart from God to Christians, otherwise you would not be calling God's actions good. Again why is God's behavior good?
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by iano, posted 12-11-2009 3:11 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-11-2009 4:20 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied
 Message 113 by iano, posted 12-13-2009 2:16 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 115 of 181 (539193)
12-13-2009 3:48 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by iano
12-13-2009 2:16 PM


Iano writes:
The top of the previous post to Modulous above should address this. If "the flavour of Gods doings" is defined by the word "good" then the problem lies in your dilemmas set up (which doesn't accept this definition: a problem for you, not me.)
I didn't set up the dilemma, Plato did. And in fact the dilemma was not even set up with your god in mind but for all the gods of the Greek pantheon. In otherwords it was conjured up as a fictional dialog to discuss the justification of calling these god's actions and behavior good or moral. A dilemma is an two-sided argument in which both outcomes are logically, socially, and/or morally unacceptable.
Why is this dilemma unacceptable in this case? Because one results in a moral standard above these supernatural being's control or influence by which they themselves are subject to and the other results in a situation in which these supernatural beings can capriciously do anything considered dispecable and abhorrant by most if almost all humans and there is no choice but to call these actions/behaviors good and moral. This same logic applies to any being which is considered to have supernatural and limitless (or near limitless) power and influence over our world, in this case the God of the Bible.
So this dilemma is directly tied to the moral standards of humans apart from that of the supernatural and the obvious conflict that it results in.
Indeed, there is a certain flaw pervading all your posting in this matter - having to do with insisting on your definition of good as a way of countering mine.
I have to admit that your and my concepts of goodness are probably not all that different (I am sure there are some differences but I would venture much of it is identical i.e. we both abhor child molesters, theft, compulsive liars, murderers, etc). The difference between us has more to do with where we infer that our morality originates from, either God (or substitute any other supernatural being) or from our own human evolution.
According to the general flow of language, there appears to be no objecting to the notion that some word or other is inserted as a shorter way of expressing that made up by a longer string of words. "good" as a way of expressing the action of God above was Gods choice, it seems.
The issue here has more to do with you using circular reasoning to describe why you believe God is good. If you said "I believe God is good because his behavior/actions match my innate moral compass of what I consider good" this would be a little less circular than just saying because good is what he does. However, this just begs the question of why you think your innate moral compass is really aligned to what is good.
These are deep, philosophical questions that short little quips/answers cannot in any way satisfy. Rather they require deep analysis and digging to figure out (if that is possible at all).
Who am I to judge God? And would my deciding to erect a standard against which to judge him matter a jot? I'm subject to him. Not him to me.
This of course begs the question of why? You keep making all these baseless assertions about God which you do not try to answer. Why is God above our scrutiny? I know there is a religious command of not questioning God but why would God make such a trivial command? If God is infinite in power and knowledge what can hurt for our scrutinizing and analyzing his moral propensity?
And given that he is the source of everthing (even evil, in the once step removed manner of creating a free will) how could we manage to erect a standard to judge other than he would judge himself. Without being mistaken I mean?
If he is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent the answer is that we probably could not create a standard to judge him. However, you would think that the standard God would use against us is the same one he should be consistent in, but after analyzing the Bible many of us find this not to be the case. We are told by Christians that slavery is wrong, but we find that God does not hold to this standard and even condones and commands this to occur several times in the Bible. We are told it is good to love your neighbor and treat them with kindness, yet we find a God who orders the ethnicide and infanticide of entire villages and civilizations (and even everyone on Earth) in the Bible. We are told by Christians to forgive, yet God states that he is unwilling to forgive us if we choose not to follow him and then will judge and sentance us to go to hell for eternity. There is an obvious and blatant moral disconnect between the God Christians promote and talk about and the God that we read about in the Bible.
Remember that what I think of as moral doesn't differ with what God says is moral. There is no me as a human/me as a Christian divide. Whilst you are correct to say that I am confined to doing as God says (assuming it is him doing the telling) you are free to do whatever you like whilst calling it moral. Which extends to eating your children if you like..
You are right that many (but not all) non-religious people subsrcibe to a form of moral relativism. However, what many of us do accept is moral universalism in which there are certain inalienable rights that should apply to all human beings. Therefore, for me and others like me, we accept that human beings have a right to live in freedom and a right for happiness and other qualities of life as long as they don't interfere with the rights of others. If you want to know the reasons why we ascribe to this moral standard, I have described some of them in another post on another thread ('The difference between a human and a rock') found here: Message 19
Who's to argue with you - other folk who happen to disagree with your view on morality. I think not.
The question isn't right or wrong because one cannot debate the rightness and wrongness of what we consider right and wrong. The answer lies in what is the most beneficial to humanity's survival both as individuals, small and large groups, and as a whole. This is what we can agree on collectively in order to survive as a species and is what supports our moral framework.
Good has taken on a meaning equating to words like "positive", "beneficial", "feels nice" etc. In other words, "goodness" is something experienced along the lines indicated by those words. And so we say what God does is good because we experience his actions in that way - even if at times the goodness of his actions is masked by apparent unpleasantness (in the case of his disciplining us)
As described above the moral disconnect with the god of the Bible is more than just "masked apparant unpleasantness" but has to do with an inconsistent (some would say hypocritical) moral standard as shown in the stories of the Bible.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by iano, posted 12-13-2009 2:16 PM iano has not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 146 of 181 (541112)
12-31-2009 3:30 PM
Reply to: Message 144 by iano
12-31-2009 11:07 AM


Perhaps it would help if you were to see goodness - the flavour of God - as pointless until such time as God decides to assign a point to it? Until then God is simply as God is - without there needing to be a point to it.
So you are going to obey a being in which is by nature arbitrary and from which we cannot discern what is right or wrong accept solely by whether he approves or disproves. Yes, I know you assume God is righteous/good but you really have no method to determine this except through circular reasoning.
Yet one point of goodness (in the sense of your dealing with the flavoutr of God) has already been furnished: it's use as a tool in the setting up of choice for us.
That is ridiculous and illogical. Goodness by your definition is an attribute of God, specifically his behavior. Therefore to say the purpose of goodness is to differentiate it from evil is like saying the purpose of the chocolate flavor of ice cream is to differentiate it from vanilla or the purpose of my blond hair is to differentiate it from brown hair. Saying it has a purpose or "is a tool in the setting up of a choice for us" implies that there is an even more fundamental principle that regulates goodness/evil that is more fundamental of God.
That different people have different moralities is neither here nor there: all men have a knowledge of good and evil (as defined by God) and all men suppress that knowledge in this way and that and to this degree and that as it suits them.
Really? So mentally handicapped people, children, elderly people suffering from demensia, those suffering from PTSD and the like (in other words nearly all humans on this planet) all have equal knowledge and comprehension of your stark black and white "good" and "evil"?
If we took a child and placed him/her in an environement in which social norms and right and wrong implications of there actions are not taught to them from birth, do you think they would have a very strong comptehension of good and evil, even if they call it something else? I think not.
If normally decent human beings can succomb to the pressure of social experimentation for short durations of time i.e. the Stanford "Prison" Experiment, it is not a stretch in the least to understand how much of our conscience is a result of social programming from birth, though I do believe "nature" (genetics) has a role in this as well as "nuture" (social programing after birth).
You might appreciate that it's not all that relevant that you can classify good and evil (as God sees it)
Your god in the Bible can't even maintain consistency with his own rules and regulations in the Bible much less any human alive or dead.
goodness has at it's source love. Love in this case being that which is selfless - truly selfless (agape).
This coming from a God who merciliessly and indiscrimanetly murders innocent children and others in the Bible while at the same time demanding people to bow down and worship him for eternity. If this is selfless I would hate to see a real selfish entity.
You see you think your religion is simple in its beliefs when in reality it is not when you dig into this fabrication. Life is not this simple. Morality is not this simple. Humanity is not this simple. It definately is not this monocrome good vs evil fairytale you make it out to be. It reminds me of politics where one side calls anyone that opposes them liberals, socialists and communists and the other side labels the other right wing extremists. This (both religious and political) is a cop out for thinking deeply and scientifically about subjects and trying to determine the true nature of things (what is reality) rather than painting everything with an absurdly broad brush of groundless assumptions and religious/political pandaring. As Jesus himself says "What is truth?".
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 144 by iano, posted 12-31-2009 11:07 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 148 by hooah212002, posted 12-31-2009 4:17 PM DevilsAdvocate has not replied
 Message 149 by iano, posted 12-31-2009 5:59 PM DevilsAdvocate has not replied
 Message 155 by iano, posted 01-01-2010 11:51 AM DevilsAdvocate has not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 147 of 181 (541116)
12-31-2009 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 109 by New Cat's Eye
12-11-2009 4:20 PM


Catholics don't say that god is omnibenevolent.
We are taught that he is Just.
Just curious what you consider the difference is between the two and why would you worship and obey an all-powerful being that is not omnibenevolent?

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-11-2009 4:20 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 174 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-07-2010 4:32 PM DevilsAdvocate has not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 153 of 181 (541165)
01-01-2010 6:56 AM
Reply to: Message 152 by Buzsaw
12-31-2009 11:30 PM


Re: Buz Buz buz......
Yah, poor folks. They collect or pay no sales tax on cigaretts & gas, no property tax get gov't & in come cases oil royalties etc. They fish & hunt freely. They get rich when the shite sheeple gamble in their lucrative casino business forbidden for white sheeple, etc.
They fare quite well with nice cars, heated homes electricity and all of the ammenities we all enjoy compared to back when they were barbaric warriors who scalped, emboweled and ortured one another in tribal wars, sacrificed their young in fires and all that paganism offers. In short, they enjoy the blessings of America without assuming the responsibilities that white sheeple must assume.
Wow, you really are a fucking racist bigot Buzz. It is amazing that some racist bigots are still trying to rationalize away the systematic ethnocide of tens of millions of human beings.
Europeans in the name of Manifest Destiny and other divine/political mandates only committed one of the largest-scale system ethnocide both directly and indirectly in human history of another culture even larger than the more recent Jewish Holocaust. And then you get pissed because the few surviving American Indians whose culture was systematically destroyed and dismantled and replaced by Europeans, who live on 1/50th the land they used to live on and most of it having few if any natural resources (which even if they had the government has and can come in and take for themselves), have resorted to any means available survive.
You got to be kidding me Buzz. Are you this fucking stupid? If white people suffered the same plight you would be either dead or living on one of these 300 reservations which occupy less than 2% of the United States. Would you be saying the same thing?
Slaves in America often fared better then their relatives back in pagan jungles. Slaves in Christian oriented America on the whole, fare better than slaves in pagan nations historically.
What a crock of shit. Where can you show me that slaves in America fared better than there free African relatives?
So slavery is acceptable as long as white Christians are doing the slaving huh. I guess we Abraham Lincoln was wrong in trying to empancipate the slaves then huh?
I guess these attrocities never happened:
District Judge Caruthers convened a grand jury in June 1911 to investigate the lynching of the Negro woman and her son. In his instructions to the jury, he said, "The people of the state have said by recently adopted constitutional provision that the race to which the unfortunate victims belonged should in large measure be divorced from participation in our political contests, because of their known racial inferiority and their dependent credulity, which very characteristic made them the mere tool of the designing and cunning. It is well known that I heartily concur in this constitutional provision of the people's will. The more then does the duty devolve upon us of a superior race and of greater intelligence to protect this weaker race from unjustifiable and lawless attacks."
This was just good Christian white folk keeping the ignorant black nigers in check.
Lastly, don't forget all of the REPUBLICAN white blood that was shed emancipating the slaves.
The Republican Party founded shortly before the Civil War is nothing like the Republican Party of today. In fact I would venture that many people of that era, especially in the South, would call the Republican Party both liberal and progressive which is a complete 180 degrees of today. The Democratic Party originally founded on the principles of small government and fiscal conservatism of Thomas Jefferson's Anti-Federalist party and was a conglomerate of several clashing subgroups including both abolitionists from the North and anti-abolitionists of the South and. In fact the Democractic party was originally called the Democratic-Republican party. Both of these parties have done a complete reversal of their original purpose and are nothing like the original political groups they only share a name with. One reason I am still an Independent is that I believe both parties have been taken over by politically corrupt extremists and hypocrites.
Go read your history books Buzz and stop inventing your own white supremacist racist history.
I am sorry for the threadjacking but it is about time to call a spade a spade or I should say a racist a racist!
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message by continuing in this vein.
AdminPD
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 152 by Buzsaw, posted 12-31-2009 11:30 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 154 by AdminPD, posted 01-01-2010 8:51 AM DevilsAdvocate has not replied
 Message 173 by Buzsaw, posted 01-05-2010 10:01 AM DevilsAdvocate has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024