Dtruthspeaker:


And these people have said that you are talking rubbish.

https://www.nairaland.com/5550016/should-drop-bank-job-federal/1#84402668

What this shows is that people use hyperbole when they talk. I'd like to add that government jobs are excellent jobs by the way, and almost always unionized too.

Near1:
The idea that Biblical rules about slavery were actually God ninja'ing an AFL/CIO thing is laughably amoral, as it reduces chattel slavery to a matter of staving off a strike of houseworkers.

In a weird way I'm enjoying watching these two "moralists" display an utter lack of morality. Slavery? Not a problem. Genocide? We'd like to have a good reason. Bashing out the brains of infants? Pretty much ordered by the source of their "morality".

Neither moral nor immoral, they're simply amoral: a point that has already been made well. Not very different from soldiers simply following orders and legality be damned. They'd be found guilty at Nuremberg, these two.

They get so wrapped up in trying to win points they forget the big picture and even forget the best handwave for such instructions: a corrupt priesthood defending its power and privileges over God's will. Plus, this handwave also maps well unto Christian talking points about Hebrew society being wrong and Jesus bringing new teachings. Of course the problem then shifts toward misogyny, but that's somehow less obviously evil to men without much surprise there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmVkJvieaOA

Dtruthspeaker:


Change of Post!, I did not ask about working late

I asked

when a bank or company you work for says you should come in to work at 7:30 and you cannot leave earlier than 4 without their permission, have they not possessed you during those hours?

Are you not their slave for those hours?

Are you free during those hours?



And I showed that it is not slavery but Contract for work and services (Labour Law) which you do and everyone does

But shall it be a good relationship or evil relationship? That is for you wicked and evil people to decide.

Now I understand why a lot of evil things happen to you people. You all are very evil whether a master oh or a servant. You all are very evil.

The answer is no, you are not their slave nor are you not free during those hours and no they do not possess you during those hours. Slavery is inherently oppressive. They had the right to marry with the permission of their master only. You could not indeed murder a slave though you could certainly beat them and discipline them as you wished. You can't do that with an employee. At worst, you can fire them and that's it. Your position on this thread has just devolved into outright trolling. You're just trying to kick up enough confusion to distract from anything incorrect that you are saying. It's a typical ploy, and is nothing but an example of bad faith.

Dtruthspeaker:


Sorry sir, when a bank or company you work for says you should come in to work at 7:30 and you cannot leave earlier than 4 without their permission, have they not possessed you during those hours?

Are you not their slave for those hours?

Are you free during those hours?



Slavery is not backed by Law for every person has his inherent natural rights. And a right to obtain work is not a right to submit to slavery.

It is wicked people who turn employees (servants) to slave, which is why where you find slavery you must find oppression because the slave must be held in by duress.

And where you find duress, you find would find The Law is breached.

Which is why in the bank an employee always has the option of resigning if he finds his working condition oppressive.

Have you ever been late for work? It happens all the time. You can even negotiate your hours. Have you ever been arrested by the police, beaten or even killed for attempting to escape? When you are at work, you are there by your own choice and your own will. You can leave whenever you want and if you are there it's because you want to. As for slavery, it is backed by the law (be it the law of Ancient Hebrew kingdoms) or that of the empires that dominated the region. You yourself quoted verses and passages linked to the practice of slavery in the region.

Dtruthspeaker:

And yet you willingly offer yourself up to be possessed by another person like a property everyday even joyfully too eg by offering yourself to slave for NNPC, Chevron, Davido's house etc, never thinking for a microsecond that this was immoral.

Do you see now that your morality button does not work?

Contractual work in a free market isn't possessing someone. It's possessing the fruit of their work not their person. A slave isn't just a person working for another one. It's also a distinct legal status. A slave cannot break the bond that links them to their master, but a contractual worker can. A slave has no right to ownership yet an employee does. A slave can be sold, traded, gifted and inherited like any other piece of property on the whims of a master such is not the case for a slave. A slave as a different level of legal protection and civil liberties which is not the case for an employee. By attempting to shield your favorite book from criticism, you are producing apologetics for one of the worst type of systematic abuse and oppression man has designed. Know you battle. Nobody in our day and age would tolerate the morality and legal systems of the Ancient Hebrew. It's simply too harsh, authoritarian, unfair, unequal, ineffective and anti-democratic for our sensibilities and our level of education.

Endtimer:


So what? What you’re saying is that most people do what everyone else does. What I’m saying is that it isn’t warranted whether or not the people in question are aware.

You are simply saying that in the absence of your hypothetical church-laws, people (due to ignorance) would continue to act properly. I’m asking why they should. Saying that they ignorantly will is a cop-out. I’ll restate the question: if God doesn’t exist, why should anyone do the right thing?

Hopefully, you won’t say, “because we’ll throw them in jail otherwise”. The question would become: why should we throw them in jail? If you say, “because killing people (as an example) is wrong”; the question becomes: why is it wrong? If you say, “it just is”; the question becomes: why? That’s enough prediction from me, but just in case you say that we just know what is good and what isn’t you’d have created the basis for rationalization of whatever anyone does based on their subjective knowledge of good and bad.

Hopefully you see why I have to continue explaining myself.

People behave decent because we are a social animal that lives in groups, and the welfare of the group is very important to us. When no one murders others etc., we are all much safer. We also innately enjoy helping others. No one needs to tell us that. People who don't have these types of emotions are disordered. Social animals take good care of their own. Look at how wolves travel. The sick and the old go first, so they set the pace for the group so they don't get left behind. Then comes a group of animals in their prime to protect the first group and take on any dangers. Then comes the general group, and the rear is brought up by the best who watch over the whole group. They take good care of each other. Every example of social animal takes care of its group. Why would we be any different?

TenQ:

You should have directed your venom to your fellow atheist who made the claims!

See what Atheism is morphing you into in RED!

Nobody made the claim that the environment was intelligent if so please point out who and in which post. What has been said though is that environmental pressure isn't "random" or "chance". I don't understand your objection nor the validity of most of the point you have attempted to make so far.

1) Your prime mover argument is ridiculous and fallacious in various manner.

2) Your argument against the modern synthesis of evolution theory is ill informed.

3) Your "complex system is sign of intelligent design" is ruined by your inability to define what makes a system "complex" and a coherent manner.

4) Your God definition both murky and largely a "ad hoc" definition.

5) Your understanding of the Big Bang theory bizarre.

I think it would be time to gather back your thoughts and make another longer post detailing your position and the responses to the critique you have received so far. You are losing yourself and your own position in a myriad of quibbles that serves more to shield your ego after many, many critiques than to explain and present your position in a cogent manner. Sometime stepping back and reassessing is the right move.

TenQ:

DNA is now evolution!?

You must have mixed me up with someone as I did not use your examples for anything nor did you even present any credible examples!

DNA is a library of DATA and INSTRUCTIONS for the growing, building, maintenance and sustenance of cells in an organism. It is an example of a Complex System.

The question I asked you which you've been dodging is:

Whenever you see a complex system or meaningful interaction of data and instructions, do you assume it happened by accident or that a non-intelligent source made it?

When I see DNA, I see a product of natural forces and natural laws as applied to the chemicals that existed on the early Earth. That is NOT a 'random coincidence'. But it also does not involve an intelligent agent. As to whether 'nothing created everything', that very much depends on what you mean by 'nothing' and 'created'. If 'nothing' means a state of the universe where there are no particles, no space, and no time, then possibly, with qualifications below. If by 'nothing' you really mean 'nothing at all', then no. I don't believe this version of 'nothing' can exist. The term 'created' is also value-laden. Do I think that a state of the universe in which there were no particles, no space,and no time decayed into a state in which those existed? Quite possibly. Do I think it is meaningful to talk about the 'cause of the universe'? Almost certainly NOT. All causality we have ever seen has been inside of the universe. It also all involves time, which is an aspect of the universe. So I simply don't think it is meaningful to talk about the cause of the universe.

TenQ:

A System is the hallmark of intelligent design.

It seems you are trying to make us laugh. So for example, the multitude of systems with a star and multiple planets orbiting? No intelligence required.

TenQ:

What I know for certain is that the Universe came into being 13.8billion years ago. Before that time ALL paws of Physics and Chemistry including Times, Space and Matter did NOT exist.

No, you do NOT know this. At this point, NOBODY knows this.

TenQ:
If the gravitational singularity was eternal, it would have been a CONSTANT. If it was a constant, it would still remain a constant till today EXCEPT it is perturbed by an external force (that is strange to the present forces in physics and chemistry).

For the singularity in standard Big Bang cosmology, it simply makes no sense to talk about it being 'eternal' or not. In fact, it isn't a thing: it is a description of the fact that in that theory time cannot be extended prior to a certain point. So, in particular, even talking about 'before' is invalid.

TenQ:

Whatever moved the gravitational singularity to inflate is EXTERNAL to it and not the kind of force we know in Physics and Chemistry.

Once again, this only betrays your lack of understanding of what the theory actually says. There was no time prior to the singularity. That is what it means to be the type of singuarity seen at the BB.

TenQ:

You as an Atheist deny this all together, me as a Christian call the primary mover my God. What then is your problem about that

Well, among other things, it assumes something not in evidence; it attributes properties to that thing that would only make sense after the universe exists; it talks about 'before' in a context where it is inappropriate; and it talks about causality in a context where it doesn't apply. I would also add on the previous point that. ''X is what I call God" is a form of fallacy of definition. It's basically both overly broad and specific. I could just as easily say "God is a breakfast made of flour, milk and eggs batter cooked in a pan" and thus declare that I'm a "God eater". Defining "God" as some sort of metaphysical or even physical phenomenon is very different than how "God" has been used and is used in society to describe a magical loosely anthropomorphic creature with supernatural power and authority of immense magnitude.

TenQ:

Cool down and learn!

Logic is a step above experience and experiments.

Logic is very simple
If A>B (Postulate 1)
and
If B>C (Postulate 2)
THEN
A>C (Conclusion)

Assuming, of course, standard propositional logic. I also assume you want to include the quantifier calculus in the designation of 'logic'. But, are you aware of the alternatives to standard, classical logic? How about paraconsistent logic? How about three or four valued logic? How about logic that does not include the law of excluded middle?

TenQ:

From the knowledge, we have are the postulates surrounding infinite regress false?

Until they are PROVEN FALSE, the CONCLUSION is TRUE

Which postulates are those?

TenQ:

You can't beat logic: only if the postulates are wrong can the conclusion be invalidated

Show logically or scientifically that infinite regress of cause and effect is possible?


Time, Space, Matter and all the laws of Physics occured simultaneously at/after big bang.
You know the implication!?

It means that however we try Scientifically, we cannot probe beyond (before) the big bang.

Maybe, maybe not. With quantum gravity, there is a strong possibility that the classical singlarity is smoothed out and that time and the universe existed prior to the beginning of the current expansion phase.

TenQ:


The Uncaused First cause must of course be beyond (before/ the big bang) meaning that He cannot be subject either to the laws of physics nor be of material/matter origin.

The Uncaused First cause is an ENIGMA!

Once again, you seem to assume there is only ONE uncaused cause. Can you prove this? Under quantum mechanics, it actually seems that there are many uncaused casues that happen all the time WITHIN our universe. So that rather invalidates your argument on that score.

TenQ:

Except your argument is that it is possible to unravel God as defined by Christians with science.

When have I ever claimed that?

TenQ:

The subjective code of a deity makes it objective for man.
Sometimes, a government steps in to fulfill the same role.

The age 18 years old as a baseline for consent is an objective rule made by government. If a child is 17 years 9 months, you cannot have sex with her as an adult without the risk of legal infraction.

You have no point dear!

Um, no. If I decide to take my morality from Tunde down the street, that doesn't suddenly make my morality objective. Neither does taking my morality from God. And no, the morality of the government is NOT objective in the sense you are using it.

TenQ:

All you needed to do was to falsify my argument and not resort to whether it is an ATHEISTIC or theological argument.

When you see a Complex System carrying data and instructions, would you assume it randomly and spontaneously came to existence OR THAT an intelligent being must have made it?

It is a simple Question!



Why wouldn't you think a Crab or Fish did the writing?
Why would you ascribe such writings to be from a highly intelligent being (human) and not a dog?

The ball in your court!

It is a simple question with a complicated answer, since it depends on the system in question. Some of such systems are man-made, so they are indeed intelligently designed. Others come about through evolution, not chance. Still others come about through self-organization, not chance. Those are alternatives to intelligent design. In no case is "random chance" among the correct answers. So you have proposed a false dichotomy since you apparently don't understand how either evolution or self-organization work. You likely haven't even heard of biosemiotics, as one way matter can self-organize. The way you stated your question is leading, which is why you think "intelligent design" is the only correct answer.

1000WaysToLive:
Yes, those are the questions. On the one hand, you claim that complex things require a designer- an intelligence.

On the other, you claim that complex things like ant hills and bee hives -do not- require a designer, an intelligence.

Which one of those two assholes has it right?


Just as I wonder which of you two assholes that tell us gods moral code is subjective...and that tell us gods moral code is objective..has it right.

At some point, you have to pick a lane, I'm afraid.


You think one or the other contradictory thing which you've said - and I don't think there's any point in continuing until you can decide for yourself which one it is..in this, and other, contexts.


Or, I can remain silent, and allow you to continue to make a fool of yourself. Never got resolution on that one.

A well reasoned argument. Well done

chryssanthe:


You DO realize that DNA is not a code, don't you? You are trying to use an analogy in an attempt to prove something. You cannot prove something using an analogy. It doesn't work that way.
To take it a step further, you are trying to use philosophy as a premise for your assertions instead of science. That way you don't have to get all tangled up explaining molecular science. Go read a science book. DNA are chemicals and no more a code than fire and gasoline are codes.

Scientists have succeeded having antique RNA form spontaneously from the known chemicals and environment that were present in early earth.
It happened naturally and spontaneously. No god was necessary. Simple antique RNA is an ancient precurser to DNA.

To continue on your excellent point here, the idea that DNA is a "code" or a "blueprint" taken literally is a fallacy of reification; It's mistaking the map for the territory; these are how we conceptualize and vulgarize DNA not what DNA is or works.

TenQ:

The question I asked was:
Is it possible to see a complex system without an intelligent designer behind it?

You are using the Teleological Argument which was variously articulated by the writers of the psalms, St. Paul, William Paley in his book Natural Theology, and many others. The argument states that just as we can tell that a watch we find on the beach was designed, so we also can tell the world was designed by an Intelligent Designer. We can also tell from the design what that Creator’s intentions for us are. There are all sorts of problems with such an argument from a modern perspective. If we say we can recognize design in the watch on the beach, why not in the beach itself? With a Creator God, everything must be designed. Which leads to the second problem: the examples of such design are radically cherry-picked, especially to show the alleged Creator in a positive light. The same Creator who supposedly designed birds and eyeballs also designed parasites and diseases. As naturalist Sir David Attenborough pointed out, just because there are pretty things like hummingbirds and butterflies doesn’t mean there is a Creator God: "You've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here in West Africa, that’s got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm."

Further, we now know from science how apparent design in the cosmos and in biological life was either self-organized by the laws of nature or evolved by natural selection, neither of which require an Intelligent Designer. The fallback argument is that such laws and evolution were themselves the creations of a Creator who fine-tuned the universe. However, this begs the question of why such a Creator was required for a creation which doesn’t reflect his assumed attributes. The idea of God’s special creation takes a beating when we understand that over 90% of all species that ever lived on earth have gone extinct in five major extinctions and many more minor ones. As Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, "If there is a designer, he must take credit for the flaws in his creation. Flaws in the creation directly reflect flaws in the creator. If there is a flaw in the creator then he cannot be all powerful."

TenQ:


You see your name written on the beach sand, will you conclude that a crab wrote it?

Very simple question!

I would assume it was another human, not God. A cause should be both sufficient and necessary. God, as an explanation, is sufficient for almost anything, but it really isn't necessary. If you had read more about science, you would have heard about self-organization as a separate explanation from evolution. Evolution and self-organization are much more likely explanations for apparent design than God. God is a highly uneconomical explanation for anything, since it posits a whole other, spiritual dimension.

TenQ:

How can "++ism" be a thing?
As yourself again naw!


Seems you don't know the difference between objective and subjective morality.

Objective morality means ABSOLUTE code of living
Subjective morality is a RELATIVE code of living.

Example:
God: it is a sin to commit Fornication
You: as long as the sex is between consenting adults and is done safely.

Objective morality gives a standard from God.


Let me ask you a question as an Atheist:
Is sex with an animal wrong if there is guarantee that the animal is not hurt, that adequate protection against STDs are used and no danger is posed to the society?


Please don't doge this question!



Is there no UNCAUSED FIRST CAUSE of everything that exist?

Please wade me through: as for me it seems to contradict simple Logic!

Any religious code is adopting the subjective opinions of some deity. Saying that is objective is like my claiming everybody asking me what is moral would give an objective morality. Sorry, but it doesn't. You mentioned that objective morality gives a standard from God. That claim is simply pushing the subjective morality back one step. Why does God think that sin is moral or immoral? If it is simply his whim, then it is not objective: it is simply the subjective opinion of God. If, instead, it is based on some deeper principles, then morality doesn't come from God, but from those deeper principles. You asked if sex with an animal wrong if there is guarantee that the animal is not hurt, that adequate protection against STDs are used and no danger is posed to the society? Well, can the animal give consent? if not, then it is immoral.

Furthermore, your asking if there can possibly be no uncaused first cause that exists is a rather twisted way to ask the question, but yes, of course it is possible that there is no first cause of everything that exists. For example, there may be many different uncaused causes. That even seems likely since it is not uncommon for two different events to have no causes in common. So we expect a wide diversity of causes as we go back in time. To think all of those causal lines converge to a single 'first cause' would be quite remarkable and unlikely. And, of course, we know that uncaused causes happen all the time: most quantum events are uncaused in any classical sense. As for the universe as a whole, it is far from clear that there needs to be a single cause for the whole thing. And, in fact, since ALL causality we have ever seen has been inside of the universe, and since causality is simply another way of saying there are natural laws, the very idea of a cause for the universe seems self-contradictory.

Endtimer:


Everyone here wrongly thinks I’m talking about actual experiences rather than abstractions. I agree that most people will continue living as though there is a reason to be good. What I’m saying is that there isn’t such a reason, regardless of whether people act as though there were. The problem isn’t that there are people who digress from morality. The problem is that adherence to Godless morality is unwarranted.

On the contrary, morality is simply a way for humans to live together. An adherence to a morality based on human needs is thereby very warranted and desirable. I would go further and say that adherence to a God based morality is unwarranted.

TenQ:

Till now, physics is still grappling with what gravity truely is my dear!

Using History to unveil physics or using Chemistry to unveil Sociology is an impossibility!
See the person using Strawman arguments calling a refutation a Strawman!? LOL!

Can science prove or disprove God!? It's a question you've not answered!

Well, we don't have a tested quantum theory of gravity, that much is true. But I'm not sure why this is relevant. In fact, often the philosophical question of what something 'truely is' is simply mental masturbation. A thing is defined by its properties, including how it interacts with other things. Secondly, history would say something about the development of physics: which ideas worked, which ones didn't, what roads were investigated that lead nowhere, etc. Chemistry can help with sociology. Thirdly, the concept of 'God' isn't well enough defined to test. It's like asking if science can prove or disprove fremlins. You give me a good definition first and then we can look into it. The problem is that theists can't seem to agree on the properties of their deities. Please note that science looks at the facts and religion looks at the feelings. Science is about knowledge and religion is about feeling good about yourself.

TenQ:

You probably don't understand my point. Let me illustrate if for you.

Suppose we don't know any history of civilizations, can we by science alone accurately reconstruct the empires and civilizations that has existed before us?

What evidence is available? The archeology will say quite a lot about the day to day lives of those in the civilization. Any writings discovered will give their stories on what they think happened. Comparison of the evidence will give as good of a description as is possible. Do you think it is possible to accurately reconstruct the empires and civilizations that came before us at all? I think we can get some approximations, but there will always be questions that are unanswered. And, the only way to answer them is a scientific approach to ALL the available evidence.

TenQ:

History is in the frame of reference of Art, Story, past time.
Science is in the frame of reference to Science, matter, energy, reactions of matter.

Just as History alone cannot decrypt science, science alone cannot decrypt history.

Same with Religion/ Spiritism and Science. It's a parallel world of view which may cross once in a while.

I think this is clearly false. We use science all the time to help us decrypt history. It often gives us quite deep insights into the past that even the writings of those from the time cannot give. By dealing with the scientific evidence we can learn a great deal about history. Often, that scientific approach reveals a lot about the written texts, both their biases and their meaning. For many ancient civilizations, all we have is the scientific evidence to decrypt what happened. The little writing available gives very little information. Yes, history gives a frame of reference for understanding art, music, and literature. By understanding the context, we can understand the intended goals of those endeavors and their impact both on the past and on the present. But I call bullshit when it comes to religion. It was originally proposed as a way to understand the world around us by those who had not yet developed the scientific method. As such, it is full of superstition and propaganda. Eliminate those and the rest can be studied by the scientific method provided it has anything real to say.

TenQ:


Throwing out the baby with the dirty bathwater!? LOL!
Have you heard this before:
"All humans are wicked and destructive therefore for nature to survive, humans need to be eliminated"!


Your point is highly synonymous!!

Discard God, morality becomes subjective and there would be nothing that is wrong.
Bestiality, Necromancers, Cannibalism, Incest etc. You'll be forced to replace God with your government as a standard by which all will live.
I cringe at your offering,

That is, of course, an asinine argument. What is right or wrong is determined by people who want to live together to make their lives easier. The rules for a working society are not that difficult to figure out and are completely natural and based on human biology and psychology. Something is wrong when it harms human well-being. No deities required.

TenQ:

So you have swallowed the bait that Atheism is NOT a belief system?

Can one sincerely belief or lack a belief something you know completely?

Using your exact definition here:
"To be atheist is to live life without faith in the existence of a god or, gods."
By your definition,
Atheism is godlessness!

Faith is a TRUST in the integrity of a PERSONALITY!

It is impossible to lack trust in the integrity of a personality who doesn't exist! In other words, Atheism is a Rejection of an Uncaused First-Cause of Everything! This makes Atheists godless! This covers both Gnostic -Atheists and Agnostic -Atheists.

Godlessness!

So many different issues here. Why identify a first cause with God (assuming there is a first cause)? What is the problem with being godless? Isn't that simply being honest?

efficiencie:


As far as morality goes, you can thank evolution for that. We are social animals, and our societies benefit when people respect each other's life and property.

This is according to which research? Can you explain how morality evolved? At what point did phytoplanktons down to apes, your earliest ancestors begin to respect each other? On what basis did you ancestors determine what is right and what is wrong and how was it as a result of evolution? Your answer begs more question.



It's inborn -- we are actually programmed to be good,

If we are programmed to be good then there must be a programmer. You may want to say that the programme evolved but that would be you shooting yourself in the foot because that would mean that the programme in humans defining their behavioral patterns is capable of learning. A programme that learns is much more sophisticated than a mere set of instructions that would most certainly necessitate a highly intelligent designer. So you just refuted yourself with this statement.

Evolution is not random, what works gets passed down.
Can you explain how life moved from inanimate to animate? Millions of years after the big bang matter was inanimate. So tell me how intelligence, emotion and life started. Also tell me how conscience evolved and also tell me how people are able to have NDEs and ESPs? And since there is evidence of people being conscious even though they are in coma you have to also explain how consciousness is defined and how it evolved.

it occurs naturally as each type of life evolves to fit in its niche.

Can you define "naturally"? Are you stylishly trying to say "order" showed up from nowhere? If order does not require intelligence then it showed up by random unaided and unguided processes. This is the same as saying a software like Microsoft Office suite was written by a billion monkeys typing away on a coordinated system of a billion computers working for a billion years. Absolutely ridiculous. Order cannot be generated without intelligence.

I don't know where matter, space and time originate, but I am sure we will have a proper answer eventually. Science is working on it. Not everything has to have an immediate answer, it took us many centuries to learn as much as we know now.

There is a lot science still hasn't unravelled. Just recently the JSW telescope is returning images indicating the big bang may be entirely false. The big bang community is fighting to explain the puzzling images they are getting. So your science still has a lot to answer. And guess what "the theory of evolution" is still a theory!

Once you understand evolution, come back and comment again. I won't teach it to you -- that's not my job. My science? I am far from a scientist. But I do understand that the point of science is to question everything, including and especially itself. You explore and record what you find. You explore, you find more -- the picture changes. It changes all the time. Science is growth of knowledge, nothing is ever carved in stone.

efficiencie:


If there is no God then what is the basis of morality? How do you define something good or evil? What makes stealing wrong in every culture? Can you answer that objectively without recourse to God or anything supernatural? If there is no God then what is the origin of order and regularity? If there is no God then all life must be random. Order cannot just bring itself into existence. Order requires intelligence. Just as you can never attribute a book to random events. So what is the origin of order? What is the origin of order in the cosmos and in physical reality? If there is no God where did all of existence come from? Where did matter, space and time originate from? If you say they came from nothing then please define "nothing"?

The last question could easily take you forever to answer in a logically coherent manner. Only a fool assumes there is no God. The real question is "who is God and how can He or She or It be reached?"

As far as morality goes, you can thank evolution for that. We are social animals, and our societies benefit when people respect each other's life and property. It's inborn -- we are actually programmed to be good, as opposed to the opinion the christian religion holds, that we are born evil. There are exceptions, such as some types of severely disordered people. Evolution is not random, what works gets passed down. Order doesn't require intelligence; it occurs naturally as each type of life evolves to fit in its niche. I don't know where matter, space and time originate, but I am sure we will have a proper answer eventually. Science is working on it. Not everything has to have an immediate answer, it took us many centuries to learn as much as we know now.

budaatum:

You must not accept my view and I am not asking you to. We are contesting the terms "Christian" and "Christianity", and according to my Qur'an, God created us with our diversity so we may learn from one another, which I very much appreciate.


I think you mean you listen more to actions than words, which would be rather odd since Christianity is based on a book with words, and those you see might not have read it or they might have misunderstood what they read.

You would not base doctoring on the basis of bad doctors, so why base Christianity on bad Christians?

That's not exactly what I'm doing, and it's also a bad analogy. I'll tackle why it's a bad analogy first: Doctoring has a specific goal -- to see to the health and well-being of the patients, especially through the treatment of ailments and injuries. That goal in turn provides a means for objectively testing what is and isn't good doctoring: patient outcomes. Doctors who, all things being equal, tend towards good results for their patients are good doctors, and those who trend towards bad patients are bad doctors. When two doctors point accusing fingers at each other and accuse their counterparts of being a bad doctor while insisting they're a good doctor, I, who barely know the difference between mitosis and dialysis, can still look figure out which one's most likely right based on how their patients do. The medical community, in turn, can also arrive at the idea of what a good doctor will or won't do based on objective analysis of patient outcomes. This is critically different from what we see in Christianity. On the one hand, let's say we have an NIFB preacher expressing a desire to see the government round up and execute all gay people and identifies chapter and verse requiring the execution of gay people in the Old Testament, and also quotes Jesus saying that not one jot or tittle of the old law has passed away. On the other hand, let's have a Catholic who's pro-life (meaning ACTUALLY pro-life) and opposes the death penalty, who herself can cite passages chapter and verse about why we shouldn't be executing people - even if she, too, thinks that being gay is a horrific sin and gay people should be excommunicated. On the third hand, we've got an Anglican who says we should accept all into our communities, even sinners, and since we're commanded not to judge we shouldn't be asking whether or not they're sinners anyway, much less condemning them, and he too can quote chapter and verse. (I know that the metaphor in which we have three hands is absurd, but so is the idea of the Bible providing objective morality.) All three point at the others and say they're wrong on the subject of morality, they're reading the text wrong and are mistaken, I have the right answer. Unlike with the doctors, I have no objective way to decide which of them (if any) to believe. The Christian community thus has no objective, shared standard for determining which is the correct way of interpreting the text, and so can't arrive at a shared, objective standard of who is a good Christian or a bad Christian.

Am I basing my view of Christianity on the "bad" Christians? (So far as that term means anything without an objective yard stick for who is a bad Christian and who isn't?) Not entirely. They're part of Christianity, but they're not the whole of Christianity. (Don't ask me if they're a majority -- I don't have solid numbers on that either way, and don't know how someone could even get those numbers. Conducting surveys asking people to label themselves as good or bad Christians probably isn't going to get good data.) But they are getting extra focus from me for two very good reasons. First is what I previously pointed out: they're a threat, and it's human nature to pay disproportionate attention to threats. Second -- and this is why they're particularly relevant in this discussion -- they provide a pointed counterexample. The example of the "bad" Christians proves that having that shared source of morals to return to as an objective standard doesn't work. Am I willing to focus for a bit on other versions of Christian morality, including yours? Sure! But first you have to actually tell me which version you're talking about. Despite my prodding, you still haven't spelled it out. Simply calling it Christian doesn't distinguish it from the morality that the "bad" Christians call Christian morality, nor does saying that you're basing it on the Bible when they're quoting chapter and verse from the Bible as basis for their morality. As an aside, I disagree with your notion that Christianity is based on a book of words. Christianity existed for hundreds of years before the Bible was ever canonized. If it didn't need the book to be Christianity then, it doesn't need the book to be Christianity now. The Bible is important in Christianity, but clearly it's not necessary. @MaxInDHouse, nevermind what I said earlier. And no... you do NOT have any answers.

budaatum:


You are focusing on one type of Christian in one place while disregarding other Christians in other places. It's like claiming Christianity is that practised in Nigeria where a gay person can not be a pastor, while ignoring say UK Christianity where the pastor's can be gay, or claiming Christianity is a tool of slavemasters while ignoring how it teaches to avoid being a slave in the first place.

There are Christians in the Republican Party who disagree with those who "stormed a nation's Capital". "Christians working for ways to turn everyone (like me) who doesn't look like them into second-class citizens" have inflated ideas about themselves. No one with a brain would like to believe manna comes from heaven, not even those who want you to be stupid like they are. Christians are taught to love their neighbours, and there's no guarantee their neighbour would look like them. And there are lots of non-Christians also, and "actual Christians doing some good stuff on the subject of poverty".

I am not presenting "some idea of True Christians vs False Christians", FemiAjani. I am more concerned about an understanding of the Christian book as opposed to what some claim is written in it, and even where it seems the god is evil, one can learn from it not to be like that instance of that God.

An example is where God is said to have looked down on Babylon and decided to "scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth" because "the whole earth had one language and the same words" and "Come together to build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth".

That's like claiming if we all on here decide to accomplish something despite our differences God would scatter us abroad from there over the face of all the earth. Show me that God and I will personally take its ignorant evil head head to the bottom of a river and bash it against a rock, because people who don't "Come together" can not build rockets to Mars, and would shout NEPA because they have not come together to say "Let there be Light".

I'm focusing more on the type of Christian that's most a threat to me and people I care about, yes. Threats are like that. They concentrate the mind wonderfully. Am I saying all Christians are like that? Of course not. I've explicitly said they aren't, and went so far as to provide the example of Christians helping with regards to poverty, on my own, to indicate that I understood that point. I'm also well aware that some Republicans, like Liz Cheney, disagree with the Jan 6 crowd, though I can't help noting that those voices of disagreement keep getting shown the door. And you don't have to tell me that the Christian nationalists trying to turn me into a second-class citizen have inflated ideas about themselves. I was already very, very, very, very, very aware of that from my own experience. The point I'm trying to make here is that the terms "Christian" and "Christianity" are... contested, to say the least, and I'm not going to accept your view that THIS or THAT attitude is Christian while the opposite is not. Multiple people and multiple agendas are laying claim to them, and I see no basis for recognizing any one of those claims over all the others. For every voice I hear that says Christianity is about loving your neighbors, it seems I see actions indicating that Christianity is about hating your queer neighbors and your non-Christian neighbors, and the actions tend to speak louder than the words. So if you want to say that those actions are not truly Christian in nature... well, maybe so and maybe not, but all you're accomplishing by saying so is staking yet another claim to the contested terms, and that further muddies the question of what is or isn't Christianity rather than clarifies it. At the end of the day the question of what Christianity really is, in the abstract, is a distraction from the very real problem of how a sizable portion of Christians are acting on Christianity in practice.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there actually is a clear, objective definition of Christianity to be read or inferred from reading the Bible. That would be great! If you want to prove that to me, let's apply a simple test. Some fact is objective if people can look at it and generally agree on the fact, right? You and I might both look at a color and agree that it's red (something that's objective) but disagree on whether it's pretty (which is subjective). So if you believe that it truly IS a source of an objective moral standard, you should be able take the Bible to the more problematic corners of Christendom, show them the objective facts contained within it proving that their morality is objectively wrong, and since it's an objective fact they'll be able to see it once it's pointed out to them. Right? (And don't say you don't have the time to do it. If you've got the time to debate atheists on an internet forum, you've got time to clean up your own house and deal with the people who are hurting others. Assuming that you're a Christian.) Once you've got Christians on the same page, or even mostly on the same page, about what this moral standard is, then I'll be willing to talk about Christian morality as if it's a well-defined, coherent concept. That shouldn't be such a hard thing to accomplish if theistic moral standards are actually objective. I won't be holding my breath. Until and unless that consensus among Christians emerges, don't expect other people to know which VERSION of Christian morality you're endorsing without first specifying it, and don't expect everyone else to agree with you that this is THE version of morality derived from the Bible when other Christians are clearly deriving very different morals from it.

MaxInDHouse:


MORALITY has to do with cohabitation so in the absence of cohabitation whatever you do is morally right since it's you and you alone nobody is offended as you choose to live the way you like.
So morality is expected to solve the problem resulting from misunderstanding if we agreed on the same standard we can solve any problem that may arise from cohabitation!



NO!
If my morality doesn't come from a SUPREME BEING then i can't impose it on my neighbour which takes us back to the starting point, since two wrongs can't make a right then we can't agree meaning there is no morality!


NO WAY!

Each human is unique on his/her own so in the absence of a SUPREME BEING there can never be peaceful coexistence, we will always need weapons and task forces to impose what we call morality on our fellowman!

I'm not quite in agreement with you in saying that we need the same moral source, but I'll play along with that for a little bit. Let's say we'd need some god-imposed moral standard, rather than one we collectively construct, in order for peaceful coexistence to be possible. You see the Bible as that standard of morality. (Or Jesus is that source or something similar. At least, you seem to be working in that direction.) Now let's say your neighbor agrees that there needs to be a common standard for morality, but they see the Koran as the right standard. The two of you are trying to look at the same subject -- God and God's moral dictates -- but seeing very different things. That's not something that's objective. What right would he have to impose Sharia law on you, or what right would you have to impose Christian law on him? How would you two coexist in the framework of theistic morality without weapons and task forces? I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying it's not an atheism problem. Everyone being an atheist wouldn't prevent us from implementing workable solutions to it, and everyone not being a theist wouldn't make the problem go away. If anything, basing morality on theism seems to have a worse track record in addressing the problem without violence.

What I'm proposing as an alternative is that we can base our morals and mores on something innate to humanity, something which we all share and which we can actually agree is there. Things like our shared desires for survival, comfort, and individual agency. The common source that we'd return to is the human condition and the needs and preferences which arise from it. This is something we can do without first settling whether a God exists, which god it is, which translations of which texts correctly convey that God's moral precepts, and what the correct way of interpreting those texts is. Since agreeing on those God questions is something that history shows humanity DOESN'T DO WELL, we shouldn't hinge our hopes of coexistence on making that agreement happen. At the very least, we should implement a pragmatic, working framework for coexistence on the off chance that everyone agreeing on God-imposed morality doesn't magically happen by the end of the week. And since we already (kind of) have that framework, we should maintain it to get by, rather than reject it out of pique simply because it doesn't involve a belief in a God.

Here's the key point. There's a difference between a common moral standard and a common moral source. A common moral standard would be us agreeing on "don't kill people", perhaps with some debate about edge cases like accidents, self-defense, and what qualifies as a person. A common moral source might be the idea that moral standards come from the Christian God as understood by... well, take your pick. Put them together and you'd have "Don't kill people, because God says not to kill people." But which is more important to coexistence? Agreeing on the standard, or agreeing on the source? If I can agree with the NIFB on the standard that we shouldn't kill people without agreeing on the source, then we'd go on not killing each other even if we don't agree on the details of why we shouldn't kill each other. That sounds great. Coexisting requires more than not killing each other, but it's a good start. But suppose you and someone in the extreme Christian right white-supremacist sphere agree on a moral source (the Christian God) but not the same standard. They think mass murder to spark a race war is the moral thing to do, and you don't. Is that a good recipe for coexistence? No. What we need is a common standard, or at least a rough consensus on that standard in order to get by. If we have that, then agreeing on the source of that standard isn't actually important.

MaxInDHouse:


Why you do atheists often confuse yourselves?

If you don't have the answer just say so instead of giving a lengthy epistle without the answers!

I believe I sufficiently addressed your questions in my previous post. You strike me as a bit rude and impatient, and you seem to have trouble understanding my answer. If you are interested, let's try this again - please pay close attention: (1) Theistic morality is even more subjective, because objectivity is about everyone being able to look at something (god, the supernatural, the divine, etc) and agree on what they see, and that's not what happens when people base morality on belief in gods. For example, if religious morality were objective (from a supreme being, as you put it), then the Episcopalians and NIFB would agree on the subject of same-sex marriage. (2) Secular morality, meaning morality arrived at independent of our beliefs about a god, can be much more objective. It's often founded on common preferences and desires -- things like "I don't want myself or my family to get murdered" -- and is constructed in ways that objectively create a world in which those preferences are widely realized. (3) Regardless of whether you understand HOW morality not grounded in a belief in a god can work, the bottom line is that it does. So stop echoing the cliched, bigoted implication that atheists can't be moral simply because you don't understand how that's possible. You not understanding how it works doesn't give you veto power.

budaatum:


We have different attitudes I guess. My attitude is that a religion is what they book says, and not what people do. The people might be taught wrong or not even bother reading the book or not even bother doing what they read in the book.

I suppose we could talk about Christianity in the abstract. Or, at least, we can talk about this or that abstract version of Christianity, since the Bible is essentially a Rorschach test and Christians won't agree on what form of the religion the Bible is presenting in the abstract. But why bother? My focus is on (for example) actual Christians storming a nation's Capital and working to destroy democracy, or on actual Christians working for ways to turn everyone (like me) who doesn't look like them into second-class citizens, or on actual Christians doing some good stuff on the subject of poverty. Admittedly this last example interests me less, because I'm going to focus on the person pointing the gun at me rather than on the person who isn't. Hypothetical, abstract Christians don't rate my attention at all. I prioritize actual threats over imaginary ones. If instead you want to present some idea of True Christians vs False Christians to No-True-Scotsman your way out of having to deal with less pleasant Christians being part of the religion, then you would communicate this much more clearly if you were to describe which version of the religion you're talking about and name it something more specific than just "Christianity".

I haven't watched all of the Liverpool this season but I think they've probably gambled in a few areas and so far they've been unlucky that multiple "problems" have surfaced at the same time. It looks like both Henderson and VVD went from "nailed on starter and pillar of the team" to "safety risks who maybe should be rotated out" over one summer and you also add that to the problems of the injury list (Keita, Chamberlain, Thiago) as well as Milner finally showing his age (soon to be 37). But I also think for someone like VVD, confidence matters a lot and he looks completely shot on that at the moment. VVD without confidence actually feels a lot like Maguire for us - slow and clumsy. I think he's had a certain reputation for a few years now where strikers have been scared to take him on and all of a sudden you see a few do it with success and now everyone will take that challenge on. But I also think the fact his partners are injury prone and he's having to rotate playing with Matip/Konate/Gomez probably doesn't make it easier for him to "settle" into a partnership.

Let's not forget about Salah where at least so far - all the worst case scenarios of giving him 350k a week and him turning into crap has played out. It's not too late for him to get into this season and he could still end up scoring 20 goals (or more) this year, but I don't see that hunger in him anymore and for some players - the hunger gives that extra 10% to push them to the top. He should be playing like a 350k/a week player pushing for a ballon d'or, but he's playing like someone who got his fat contract and now he's just kinda happy not pushing the extra mile.

MaxInDHouse:

If your morality is not from a SUPREME BEING do you expect your neighbour to develop his own or comply with yours?
If each person just have to develop his or her own morality how do we cohabit peacefully?

We could ask the same about theism-based morality. If you base your morality on the Christian Bible and your two neighbors base theirs on the Muslim Koran and the 10 precepts of Buddhism, respectively, then how do you live side by side peacefully? If you base your morality on (let's say) a Catholic take on Christian morality, and your two neighbors base theirs on Orthodox and Protestant Christianity, then how do you get along peacefully? If objectivity is defined as something that different, disparate people can look at and generally agree on what they see (literally or figuratively), then no morality rooted in theism can be objective, because the theistic dogmas underlying theistic morality are not generally agreed upon. The Hindu will not agree that Moses came down the mountain bearing God's commandments to humanity, any more than the Christian will agree that the Vishnu is watching over us.

What we CAN agree on is secular morality. Not necessarily morality by only secular people, or morality that hinges on disbelieving in the existence of a god, but morality that doesn't NEED a god for us to agree with it. We start by asking basic questions -- what kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of people do we want to surround ourselves with? -- and when we do that, we arrive at some pretty similar answers with most of the people around us. We want to live in a world where we feel safe and secure, which means a world where people don't beat and rape and murder each other willy-nilly. So we work to discourage and prevent that in various ways. We won't agree that the 10 commandments are divinely-written, but we will agree that murder isn't something we want in our communities. We want to live in a world where, if something bad were to happen to us, people will support us, and so we build up social norms in which people are expected to help others in trouble. We might not agree that Confucius had any particular authority when he commanded "Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself," but we can evaluate it as a sensible rule for living in a peaceful world rather than a violent one and adopt it as good advice, rather than a religious commandment. All of these preferences are common, and all of these rules are sensible and obvious steps towards those preferences, and so societies as a whole (with some individual holdouts) tend to adopt them. Regardless of whether that's objective or subjective, it happens, and it does so even if some parts of society think the morality in question comes from the dictates of the Christian God, and others think it comes from the necessities of transcending the Dharmic cycle to achieve Nirvana, and others just value human happiness and agency and think it's a good way to advance those causes. At the end of the day, secular morality works, regardless of whether we agree on the existence of a god. Not perfectly and not without friction, but it works. (And it works a far sight better than religion-based morality does, if the long trail of religious conflict stretching back into human prehistory is any indicator.) You might ask how it could work and imply that it couldn't, but the bottom line is that it does. Whether or not we explain to your satisfaction HOW it works won't change that fact.

budaatum:

I guess you need to choose between "in theory" and "in practice". I personally do not think Christianity is a in theory.

Neither do I. My attitude is that the religion is what the religious do, and what the book says is just words on a page unless people actually adhere to it. The practice is the religion, and everything else is just spin, trivia, or abstractions. And Christians who will refuse to help their neighbors and, for that matter, actively hate their neighbors (homophobes and transphobes, for example) because that's what the religion teaches them? They're part of the practice, and so how they practice the religion is part of the religion. Is that every last Christian? No. I'm not pretending that Christianity is consistently about abandoning and hating your neighbors. But let's also not pretend that it's consistently about helping and loving them, either.