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ya know, sometimes "just plain stupid' Can explain some of the things I do and think.
If you are smart enough to operate a computer and log on, you are smart enough to reason. If you can reason you can do it according the manual or wing it. If you wing it, you can expect buckshot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 909er
My belief is easy, and true Christianity does not involve ripping on others, it involves love.
If morality is objective and absolute, God must exist.
Morality is objective and absolute.
Therefore, God must exist
A human experience of morality is observed.
God is the best or only explanation for this moral experience.
Therefore, God exists
God had to give the world free will in order for true love to be experienced. Free will opened the door to evil.
Morality is not objective or absolute, Not even even in the Bible. Therefore your premise and argument fails.
now wait a sec. Let's just look at the first line.
If morality is objective and absolute, God must exist. Not a valid axiom.
now the second.
Morality is objective and absolute. no, this wrong again.
This aint a baseball game here ladies. Anything based off of these is non-philosophers" logical fallacies. conclusion that use these as a base is a conclusion based on wrong information. I would rather base it on "nothing" than wrong myself.
Morality is absolute, there is only good and evil. Man is not capable of defining what is good, Hitler thought he was good. Only an absolute unchanging source is capable of being good, and nothing on this earth is unchanging. Therefore, only a higher power is capable of being absolute and unchanging. That is God.
Morality is absolute, there is only good and evil. Man is not capable of defining what is good, Hitler thought he was good. Only an absolute unchanging source is capable of being good, and nothing on this earth is unchanging. Therefore, only a higher power is capable of being absolute and unchanging. That is God.
Complete and utter nonsense.
The source of this purported absolute and unchanging morality is the Bible, which touts moral rules no longer in effect (Mosaic Law), at least according to Christians - who fall all over themselves to disavow things like stoning adulterers, or slaughtering every firstborn in Egypt, and whatnot.
Where's freedom of speech in the Bible? How about the right to democratic representation? These are nowhere to be found. Therefore, by your logic such morality - the right to such things - does not exist and has no moral value.
Where's the condemnation of slavery in the Bible? It doesn't exist - rules for the behavior of slaves and the absence of any condemnation of the institution means, according to your logic, that at best slavery isn't immoral and, more likely, is affirmatively moral.
Of course, you know that slavery is immoral. So do I. And since the Bible doesn't tell us that, we both came to understand that without having to read the Bible, thus demonstrating that neither of us needs some ancient drivel to instruct our behavior. The only difference between us is that you're completely oblivious to your own disregard for the Bible when it runs counter to what is immoral by your own very non-Biblical standards.
Morality is a human construct. This is blatantly obvious.
Morality is absolute, there is only good and evil. Man is not capable of defining what is good, Hitler thought he was good. Only an absolute unchanging source is capable of being good, and nothing on this earth is unchanging. Therefore, only a higher power is capable of being absolute and unchanging. That is God.
That is your opinion, and you are welcome to have it. It doesn't make what you believe true though. You may want to expand your limited horizons though.
Morality is absolute, there is only good and evil. Man is not capable of defining what is good, Hitler thought he was good. Only an absolute unchanging source is capable of being good, and nothing on this earth is unchanging. Therefore, only a higher power is capable of being absolute and unchanging. That is God.
I see you did not take me up on my offer of information that would benefit you. Allow me to help you:
- Morality is not absolute because you assert it is. Nor is everything necessarily appropriate to classify as good or evil. This way of thinking is called black & white thinking, which is a result of being taught misguided self-hate. Here is another piece of information which would serve you well in life Splitting (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Whether Hitler believed himself to be good is irrelevant to whether humans can define their own morality. These are 2 unrelated concepts. It is like saying that because hitler wrote a journal, writing is evil.
- Your assertion to know what a god (who likely does not exist) is capable of is frankly, narcissistic. You don't know that some higher power truly exists, but even if we put that aside for the moment, what makes you think such a higher authority would have your particular interests in mind? As an analogy...when is the last time you considered the interests, listened to the prayers of, and intervened in an insect battle?
Morality is absolute, there is only good and evil. Man is not capable of defining what is good, Hitler thought he was good. Only an absolute unchanging source is capable of being good, and nothing on this earth is unchanging. Therefore, only a higher power is capable of being absolute and unchanging. That is God.
I can see your argument. It is similar to Visions and is quite understandable. Without a reliable originator of a fixed and absolute standard and code of morality, who knows what is good and what is evil?
Thus God is necessary for there to be a reliable morality - or actually, what the argument really is is, there has to be a fixed and absolute morality and God is the only possible source of a fixed and immutable morality, so God must exist.
Unfortunately, setting aside which god, which religion and which morality, this argument fails on two counts:
(1) nice though it would be to have a fixed natural law of good and bad that we could point to without argument, in fact we don't. Good and evil in fact does exist apart from what we think about it. After all, good an evide from whose point of view? Only from what suits us, individually and collectively. Thus morality is a human preference and social invention, like language, calendars, art and music and none the worse for that.
(2) even if there was a god using the 'I made everything, therefore i get to decide what's good and what's evil' argument, that doesn't make it moral from our point of view, only from the god's. And indeed there are many examples in all religions of gods doing things that suited it that humans didn't think of as good, either intrinsically (as in the she bear clawing kids to death for laughing at a prophet's bald head, or indeed the life -cycle of the Ichneumon fly as an example of a "Good" creation).
What this means is that gods moralities are not always good from our point iof view and have to be explained, excused or just accepted as 'Good because God says so'. as in your Hitler example, just thinking that you are good or even saying so so, doesn't make one good.
At least, it is evidence that human morality doesn't always coincide with divinely -given moralities, and it is thus clear that morality can and does exist apart from that given by a god.
Conclusion: God is not necessary for morality.
Morality os not necessarily reliable or valid even if god -given
The probability is that our morality is a useful and needful human invention and as valid as a calendar.
And whether you hear what we say or not, you can take it as read that your argument fails and it has no chance of making a case of God with anyone capable of thinking rationally.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-01-2015 at 08:42 AM..
The Bible is an account of this world, created in free will which opens the door to evil, such as slavery. It does not mean God condones slavery. The Bible was never designed to serve as a manifesto on controversial political issues. It is rather primarily the story of how God, over time, has worked His sovereign will in this universe, and is still able to do so, through the hearts and minds and lives of those who trust Him. the best way to change moral behavior is to transform moral views. And guess what? Beginning in the second century, many masters, upon converting to Christ, began to release their slaves. Slavery was abolished in Great Britain after people began being converted to Christ under the preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield. The Bible primarily details the account of how God has chosen to deal with the tragic results of a sin-fallen world down through the ages. While recognizing the reality of slavery as it existed in various forms, the Bible never actually condones it. It rather gives slaves, both then and more recently, a spiritual basis for worth, dignity, equality, and hope to face difficult circumstances. In the end, at a deeper level, its position is clear.
If God came right out and publicly changed the world, it would defeat His whole purpose of belief through faith and free will. It will not happen, and you can NOT prove God does not exist.
Right and wrong are objective and absolute. If someone comes over and hurts your family, you are going to be quite angry. This is based on you knowing what is right and wrong, and the innate intrinsic ability to do that. That is not based on humanity, as I said some humans think they are doing good while it is really evil. Your argument that morality is human self destructs, it is not possible. Humans have been trying to come up with morality since the beginning of time, and have failed every time. If we were capable, the world would be perfect. It is not. If we were time + matter + chance, there would be no worth to that and you would not value your life or others. You would not get angry when someone hurt you or those you love.
OP I too went through similar what you did. Was raised Catholic at a young age before I ever knew what the whole faith thing was about. Got away from Catholicism when I got older. But I did NOT reject the whole faith/belief in creator God thing. Went on my own campaign to explore different faiths/ denominations before landing where I am. If you don't want to believe, that is up to you. In my life God has made himself real enough to me for me to believe in his existence. And I am convinced that he exists outside of the boundaries of this universe and does not need to make himself appear or perform miracles just because we demand it. And I also read a lot of biblically related articles online, in archeological publications, etc. that support the existence of the ancient civilizations mentioned in the bible. But on the other hand I would not force you to follow my beliefs. But don't be mistaken. That doesn't mean I am going to stand by and let one group re-define society and rewrite history to satisfy their own agenda all the while painting me and others like me into an ever-shrinking corner. Can you accept that and co-exist in society with someone that does believe without continually criticizing them or trying to convert them over if they leave you alone? Some can't. Some see "religion" as the number one evil today and think they need to purge society of all such "superstitions". Some claim that one can't be "religious" and believe in this, that and whatever, where they are just stereotyping and trying to put religious people into some neat little box. Yes, we need to question and be critical of the claims and motivations EVERY group out there.
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is, there has to be a fixed and absolute morality and God is the only possible source of a fixed and immutable morality, so God must exist. 
