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I suppose i simply beleive that there exists within all people the capacity for good, and that capacity for good is more prevalent than the capacity for evil in the way we express ourselves.
I believe this to, however I believe that this exists because we were created by a God who is the standard for Good. Otherwise, why else would this good exist? Pure chance?
You misunderstand, what i meant was i am unaware of any tangible evidence that gives credence to the views espoused by the Nazis.
Ah ok. Yes I wouldn't think there is any evidence to support the Nazis were truly superior. That said, that doesn't mean they believed it any less.
I know but this relied soley on their twisted ideology, not on any real evidence.
Doesn't matter. They thought they were doing the right thing.
Thats why faith in an ideology is such a dangerous thing.
Faith in an ideology which can not stand up to scrutiny and discussion is a dangerous thing.
No it really doesn't and im surprised you think so, objective morality applies to a certain society, and its prevailing culture, the culture in Germany under the Nazis would have condoned their behaviour based on the objective morality they subscribed to, thats the problem with objective moral vlaues, they are not universal or multicultural, in fact that are the opposite of mutlicultural, they act as a barrier between cultures.
You could not be more wrong here. I gave you the definition of what "Objective" means in my previous post. If you tie Objective Moral Values to a society then they are not objective anymore, they are subjective of that society. Objective Moral Values ARE universal and independent of personal preference. That's what I'm saying. I would argue not murdering an infant would be an Objective Moral Value. What that means is that, if you are in a society that thinks it is ok to murder an infant you are still WRONG even though your culture tells you its right. You need to understand what Objective Moral Values are before we can continue in this discussion.
Not necessarily, i beleive that objective moral values are shaped by the environment, and are open to change, and this is clearly demonstrated across the broad spectrum of muna cultures that have existed and currently exist, you seem to be subsribing to the view that they are universal, and thus fixed in time, i have heard of this before and i do not beleive it is the correct interpretation.
Again as I pointed out above, this is not what Objective Moral Values are. Think of it this way. We've discovered some Objective fact in a scientific experiment. What if I said, "Oh no that is subject to change and is dependent on each individual experiment." Doesn't sound right does it?
Subjective moral values apply to the individual, they imply that every individual has his/her own conception of what is right and wrong, this was definitely not the case in Nazi germany, quite the opposite, thats why i beleive your own argument works against you.
Again, above I've described them again. Subjective Moral Values would apply to a society or an individual. Objective Moral Values are independent of both.
Can you not see the prblem here, you are using the word subjective but applying it to anyone who subscribed to Nazi ideology.
Yup. As explained above.
No, even if the entire world beleived objectively that they were morally right, my subjective conception of morality would never allow me to think that they were acting morally.
With this statement you are coming close to agreeing with me finally :) Even if the rest of the world thought that killing infants were OK, it would not be OK. That's because you sense an Objective Moral Value independent of what people and societies say. You sense this because God has written these laws on your and everyone else's hearts.
By that logica everything from supernovas to the birth of children are supernatural events, i think it is more logical to beleive they are natural events given the wealth of scientific evidence supporting that claim. You seem to be suggesting that because science cannot explain what transpired prior to teh big bang we must therefore resort to a supernatural explantion but it is quite obvious (to me at least) that if that kind of reasoning was aapplied we would never even discovered the big bang.
You misunderstand. And no those events are not similar to what I'm saying. Time and Space BEGAN to exist at the moment of the big bang. Whatever CAUSED the big bang to happen exists outside of time and space and thus by definition is a supernatural event. See what I'm saying?
can be summed up as a best guess answer based on available evidence, religion is not.
I find the ID movement to be very compelling so I would disagree with this point.
Then i don't belevie in Christianity but i also don't think its as rigid as you are suggesting.
Jesus says it pretty clearly:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me." John 14:6
If you don't accept Jesus for who he says he is, then you are in conflict with Christianity.
Words written by men are meaningless to me, i could write my own scripture and it would have just as much validity as the one you worship from.
I wouldn't think so. These were inspired words written by inspired men during the time of Jesus Christ. You certainly not would have any validity because you have no corroborating evidence in philosophy, science, history, and etc for your personal work.
Its impossible not to feel bigger than what you are when you have a comprehension of the scientific realities that bind us to our existence. You can try to qualify this as supernatural if you wish but i can assure no one else would. With regard to "evidence", i do believe it has anymore credibility than a book i write claming i am the son of God.
What would you qualify it as then? The belief in a God, pantheistic or not, is a supernatural belief.
Im sorry but this just seems so ridiculous to me, as humans we can only think linearly, therefore we interpret events naturally in a linear fashion, nothing can exist without non-existence, existence is a function of relationship. The state of existence implies non-existence, it is impossible to know one without the other, this is not something that be interpreted using causality. You cannot have something without nothing, this is a nonsense argument.
I think you misunderstand my point. A pantheistic God would have been created at the time of the Big Bang because nature is God and etc. What created Him/It? My question is how can a Pantheistic God will itself from non-existence to existence?
No i am saying that there is no difference between them.
One is the opposite of the other, how is there no difference?
This is probably my biggest problem with the thiestic God i.e. an omnipotent being that can be thought of as having anthropomorphic qualities
You are the one who was implying it wouldn't be "fun" to know that we are God. I think that is applying the same concept is it not?
This is just incoherent. The belief in the Christian God is that God is the source of all good. God is the standard. God cannot be evil because that would be against his nature and thus there is nothing arbitrary here.
As for your last question:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)
This verse tells us that God was acting before time when He created the universe. Therefore, God has no need of being created because He created the time dimension of our universe . Because Cause and Effect only exist in the dimension of time, cause and effect would never apply to His existence.
I think you can say that some people commit suicide because they are religious (i.e. Muslim extremists) but to imply that all religion causes suicide is just ridiculous. Clearly the number one reason for suicide is depression. There seems to be some sentiment that this depression comes because "After all, there would be no 'promise' of a better time after death." This seems completely absurd and in fact I would argue a lot of this depression comes from neo-Atheists. "There is no after life. There are no moral objective values. There is no free will. You were an accident. You have no purpose." These of course are paraphrases, but isn't this extremely depressing? If life is all pain and suffering for no reason what-so-ever can you blame the ones who are suffering the most for considering this in that kind of mind frame?
That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying only one of the beliefs can logically be true. Ironically enough you tell me that people should not believe in God but this in itself is your attempt to make a truth claim is it not? I'm merely saying:
1.) Only one of the religions can be true (I consider atheism a religion)
2.) You should not try to force your truth on people, however that does not mean that you can't have an intelligent discussion about it with someone and present your arguments.
People should not try to hold a monopoly on "the truth." I am a firm believer in doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions.
That said, you can ask your question about anything. Why is our current belief that humans are causing global warming true? Some data seems to suggest it, but it is not clear. I like to use almost a scientific method towards figuring out which best fits the facts. What makes the most sense... If I take the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe, what would have caused it to happen? Does it make sense that it just randomly popped into existence for no reason? Ok, so that makes me believe there is a Creator. Now that I think there is a Creator, what idea makes the most sense? Because our Universe is finite (at least according to the most recent scientific data) that rules out Pantheism and etc. because if the Universe is God, how can it bring itself into existence? Ok, so what best explains the idea of an all powerful, timeless, immaterial, and personal Creator? From all the research I've done on my own I believe Christianity best fits the evidence that we have.
You don't get to just say, "Ohhh but who is to say our current belief is even close" and give up. Could you imagine if scientists did that? Make no mistake, I am entitled in saying that only one can be true because ALL of the ideas conflict with each other. Unless you provide some sort of hypothesis that could be true (with some sort of evidence anyways) that refutes all of the current ideas while being true itself then you are not being very helpful in the discussion.
wow - sounds like a terrible idea. luckily we didn't all lock in on one belief while we thought the earth was flat and the center of the solar system, etc.
Why is that a terrible idea? If you logically look at all the beliefs only one of them can be true. By the rules of logic, if one is true the others are false. You can make the claim that you think they are all false but then you support the idea that your belief is true and the others are false so you're really in the same boat. That DOES NOT mean that you shouldn't be tolerant but tolerance does not require that you accept everything to be true.
Everything that i am, everything that i use to interact with this reality, i can judge based on my interaction what way i would like to be treated by others like me, and based on that i know how others would like to be treated.
So we've established again... your faculties are personal preference which differ from human to human.
You could not argue that as i have never seen any evidence claiming the Nazis really were a uperior race, or that Jews were inferior in anyway.
Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_race
Of special note:
'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race, represent an ideal and "pure race" that was the purest representation of the original racial stock of those who were then called the Proto-Aryans,[1] themselves believed by the Nazis to have prehistorically dwelt on the North German Plain and ultimately to have originated from Atlantis.[2] The Nazis declared that the Nordics (i.e., the Germanic peoples) were the true Aryans because they claimed that they were more "pure" (less racially mixed with non-native Indo-European peoples) than other people of what were then called the Aryan peoples (now generally called the Indo-European peoples), such as the Slavic peoples, the Romance peoples, the Iranian peoples, and the Indo-Aryans.[3] Claiming that the Nordic peoples were superior to all other races, the Nazis believed they were entitled to world domination.
As you can see, they truly thought they were the superior race which is how they justified genocide. So my point stands. They believed they were doing the "Right" thing. The concept of Objective Moral values would mean that they were still doing the wrong thing even though they had justified it and thought they were doing the right thing.
To a madman with a predisposition towards genocide im sure it seemed like a swell idea.
Hitler did not have some predisposition towards genocide. This came from the above belief that his race was superior than those around him, as I demonstrated above.
No because even though the Holocaust highlighted the horror mankind is capable of unleashing in his fellow man the reality is that thorughout the time span of human history there is mroe evidence of man lving side by side with man in peace and harmony than there is of the opposite, and this i beleive is because peoples personal perferences invariably resolve around self interest for themselves and/or the group which wouldn't accord well with killing oneanother. Its simply not an evolutionary favorable trait to want to kill your fellow man, thats why genes for homocide are not too prominent within the human species.
I don't really think this answers anything of my point. One can clearly see that there are obviously less people that are being murdered than not and this is not really a relevant point. Besides, one might argue that your above statement really only applies to the current times.
No i don't but understand why they are needed, at least within the context of our current fucked up society.
I would argue our current society is "fucked up" because people are being brain washed by the media to believe... "Ohh what's right is what you think is what's right for you. No one is 'wrong' they are just different than you." This moral relativism is what is wrong with society (or at least a big part of it).
No actually were not, what you seem to be missing is the fact that in Nazi Germany under Hitler beleiving Jews and Gipsy's were vermin was an objective moral value, thus people who even knew it was wrong would have had to subscribe to it, you see its quite easy to turn your very argument around on you.
Wait, above you just said that the Nazi's did not consider themselves superior to the Jews. That aside, I don't think you understand what Objective Moral values mean. You are not turning my argument around on me, you are further strengthening it! An Objective Moral value is something that is independent of what the Nazi's thought. Them believing the Jews and Gypsies were "vermin" is a SUBJECTIVE moral value, which under your belief system is permissible because that is what their faculties tell them is true. An Objective Moral value in this case would mean that what the Germans were doing was WRONG even though they subjectively thought they were RIGHT. So my original question stands. If the Nazi's had won the World War and dominated the world, would their actions then have been right?
NO but its can be based on your perception of objectivity, lets not get too abstract here, ill say right now that if i witness a miracle with my own two eyes then ill chabge my views in a split second but i just find that chances of that happebng absolutely miniscule
ob·jec·tive/əbˈjektiv/
Adjective:
(of a person or their judgment) Not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
As you can see by definition (or at least what I'm talking about) is things that are not influenced by personal feelings or opinions. So there is no "perception" of objectivity for that would mean that it is not objective and is self-refuted by the definition above. If I may paraphrase what you said, "It can be based on your personal feelings of objectivity." A self-refuting statement no?
I like the way you have in inverted commas as if i had written those words,
I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, I was merely trying to paraphrase your point. Points do not always come across properly over the internet and I apologize about that.
I r4eally don't know what you are trying to do here, what i am saying is that mathematics has a tiny element of personal judgement as nothing can be perceived without it vbut that in no way leaves the door open for God. Mathematics is the closest the human species has come to true objective knowledge.
I'm only trying to point out that you have unfair standards for judging the supernatural. The same reasons you exclude the supernatural, or God if you like, exist for things that you accept. So if that's true, your disbelief is just a matter of choice. Which made me think of another point. If the universe came into being and was not eternal, then it required a supernatural event. I say that because before the universe existed there was no space, time, natural laws, and etc. So by definition, a "super natural" event had to happen in order for the universe to exist. Would you disagree with that assessment?
Not at all, in all honesty they probably didn't happen, in least in as far as we can understand happenings (hope im not being too vague).
That is a little vague but that's ok :)
No it means they don't have a satisfactory explanation, and thus cannot be explained and any attempts to exaplin they without objectively veriafable evidence should be met with severe scepticism.
It is not completely bad to meet those kinds of things with skepticism. That said, can't we say the same thing about the Biblical accounts? There is no satisfactory explanation? Prior to this you were telling me that these things DIDN'T happen because you don't believe in magic. I would say I am still sometimes skeptical of certain events recorded in the Bible, but that doesn't mean you get to dismiss them as false.
I think they can to be honest, i panthiesm is compatible with all religions, the vast majority of religions are not exclusionist in their teachings, and i don't have to beleive in Christianity in the way that you do, beleiving in Chrisitianity as you do requires me to isolate myself from all other religions and requries doublethink whenever science comes into conflcit with it, and it reqiuires wholehearted belief in utterly irrational and illogical events.
In the words of Highlander, "There can be only one!" You can't believe in the main aspect of Christianity differently than I do for then you would not believe in Christianity. That main aspect was Jesus and who he claimed to be and what he claimed to do. If you deny that, then you don't believe in Christianity and thus Christianity and Pantheism are not compatible because one denies the nature of the other.
Yes you're right thats why i beleive you are wrong.
Excellent! I'm tired of hearing this, "We can all be right" BS that is put out by modern media. You can be tolerant but still think someone is wrong. For the record, I think you're wrong too :)
Not really, both fo these religions fit nicely into the umbrella of panthiesm, once you understand what it really is you begin to realise that.
As I explained above, they would not fit nicely.
It depends on what you mean by wrong, i am tolerant but i beleive the majority of most religous scriptures are hogwash if interpreted literally, i would agree with an athiest on everything he would say, the problem is he would take it too far.
No no no, don't back pedal. Stand with your previous statement where you said you thought I was wrong. I believe an atheist would say you are going to far :) They would call Pantheism hogwash. At least for Christianity you have texts and scriptures for evidence. There is no such thing for Pantheism. Although now that I'm thinking about it, this is a very weird position to take on your end. You believe in Pantheism, which I would argue is a supernatural belief because you can't empirically prove this to be true, but you disagree with Christianity which is a super natural belief that has evidence (whether you disagree with it or not is another matter, but its there).
I more or less what from a person who has no clear understnading of it.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying I, which is backed by the current scientific data, have no clear understanding?
Godn is both existence and non-existence which are two sides of the samke coin, existence and non-existence are inseparable, like birth and death, male and female, yin and yang.
That's cute and symmetrical but doesn't answer the question. What caused non-existence to become existence? Are you saying that non-existence willed itself into being existence?
Because you are playing a game with yourself, and it wouldn't be much fun if you knew you were God.
Oh I don't know about that. I love to use cheat codes in video games to become all powerful and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But that aside, why am I playing a game? Why not just be God without this charade? Is God just bored?
i don't need to back up my position with history, if i go to a hospital and try to heal a dying man and fail, that tells me all i ned to know about what Jesus was and wasn't capable of doing.
I would argue to the contrary. You just claimed that the miracles detailed in the Bible were added after the fact by the Church. That would require some sort of evidence.
if i go to a hospital and try to heal a dying man and fail, that tells me all i ned to know about what Jesus was and wasn't capable of doing.
I believe all that would mean is that you are not in fact equivalent to God or his power.
Because i am equippeed with the faculites for judging and the capacity to judge.
What are those faculties?
No because any free thinker can realise it was a very bad thing for the people who were subjected to it.
That doesn't answer the question. Let's remove any sort of brain washing. I think I can safely say that we can assume that Hitler assume the Holocaust was a great thing. (In fact one might argue that it is the logical end to Darwinism, but I digress) Under the system that you just described to me, this is not wrong because Hitler was attempting to purify the Arian race and thus believed in what he was doing. So the end result is the Holocaust is a matter of personal preference as far as whether it is wrong or not.
No they exist because they must exist.
Wait, didn't you just say you didn't believe in Objetive Moral Values?
No, from the persons point of view that may be correct but not that of the society, keep in mind i don't advocate a soceity constructed beleif in a judicial ssytem based on subjective morality, and the only reason it because i cannot envisage how it would function successfully, that does not however require me to accpet objective morality as a the gold standard.
I hate to hammer the same point.... The Nazi's believed in what Hitler was doing and believed it to be right. You've had countless societies commit attrocities because they believed they were doing the "Right" thing. We're back to this just being a matter of personal preference instead of an Objective Moral Value.
No then are hogwash because the level of doubt that is placed on them is so much greater that effectively invalidates them as thigns that should be taken seriously
Ah yes here is a problem. "Level of doubt" is not something that is objectifyable. That sounds like personal preference to me. "I don't believe because THEY don't believe" is not a logical position to take.
That is not possible, its about degrees of truth, i am not trying to deny that there is no such things as purely objective knowledge, i am well aware of that, there is an element of personal judgement involved in screening out effects of background noise in all instances, but that does not mean we should not strive for objective knowledge, it may be an unattainable goal but the fundamental axioms upon which mathematics is based are acknowledged as being the closest mankind has ever come to obtaining purely objective knowledge.
So... Mathematics and Science can be accepted based soley on personal judgement?
No it means it deserve to be taken seriously.
I'm a little confused. This fails the same standard that you say rules out miracles. Why?
You misunderstand, i am taking a hardline position against religion simpyl because i have to, there is no other option for me, i am not going to sit on the fence like an agnostic, i did that enough from the ages of 14-17, but i acknowledge the existence of things whose explanation is beyond the capacity of science as is exists currently, in fact i have experienced some of these phenomena.
That's interesting. So if you were to detail these phenomena, would you be cross with me if I were to tell you that they didn't happen? After all, no scientific explanation means that it couldn't have happened, right?
You aere not wrong to beleive in Christianity, or any other religion but i do belevie it is wrong to elevate a man to the status of God, God is everything, and everyone, and this can be experienced thorugh perseverance, many Chrisitians have experienced this but they simply fit it into there own ideology, as do the others there not wrong to do so.
I don't think that's true. As pantheism and Christianity can't both be true, then one or both of us is wrong. You can and should be tolerant, as you seem to be with our nice discussion here :) but make no mistake, we can't both be right on this.
You do not understand my views, my views are all encompassing, i don't exclude any religion from my beleifs, they are all fundamentally the same, please watch this video from the great great master philosopher Alan Watts
Logically you have to exclude certain religions however. Christianity and Islam would certainly be excluded and I'm sure there are many others. If Pantheism is true, they are false... likewise if either of them are True then Pantheism is false. You can be tolerant of everyone's belief, but someone is wrong if not everyone (As an atheist would point out)
http://www.youtube.com/
If I get some free time maybe I will take a peak. With that said, there are certain logical problems that would need to be addressed first. I believe that the universe is not infinitely old, i.e. Big Bang Cosmology. If that is true then I believe Pantheism has quite the hurdle to overcome.... For if the existence of the universe is finite that means that God as you describe Him began to exist, but how can something bring itself into existence out of nothing? Furthmore, if I am God, why am I so stupid, powerless and sinful?
Please describe this God to me, waht do you know of him.
This is probably a very long conversation.
Yes thats exactly what id expect a person such as yourself to say cause if you even begin to entertain the possibility that your God may not exist as you know him your entire ideology comes crumbnling in around you.
Oh I have entertained the possibility. As you asked before, please don't presume to know how I came to my faith in Jesus and in God.
Ya because God gave me the freedom to do so right?
Yup.
I don't find that hard to beleive at all, look at human history, look at what people widely beleived even 80-100 years. If you go back before the age of enlightenment then everyone (even intellectuals) were incredibly superstituous.
I wouldn't argue that there was a lot of superstition, but I don't think that means you get to disregard anything they would have written down. I assume we should ignore all interesting/unbelievable events that happened before 80-100 years ago because science was not as advanced back then? That doesn't seem like a logical position to me.
Even it thats true it doesn't add any credence to your argument.
I think it does. You can't make the argument that the events described in the Bible were a result of legend because people would have still been alive to refute it! That is a huge!
You really are only succeeding in convincing yourself here, its widely known that the vatican re-wrote much of the bible and bestowed jesus with much the supernatural power he is purported to have had.
Now who's trying to convince themselves? Is there actual evidence of this? Please don't tell me you're getting this from a misunderstanding of the Council of Nicaea?
Actually your entirely correct(im surprised), i don't subsribe to objective morality in the slightest, i beleive morality is the rsponsibility of the individual. Societies and cultures cannot tell me what is right and what is wrong, i know in my heart what is right and what is wrong.
Ahhhh and we get to the Heart of it so to speak. Pardon the pun :) Why do you know what is right and what is wrong? If the Nazi's had won World War II and brain washed the populace into believing the Holocaust was a good thing (i.e., purification of the specifies) is it then a good thing? Objective moral values would hold that the actions of the Holocaust were "wrong" regardless of what you think about them. I believe Objective Moral values exist because you have a standard to measure them against, i.e. God (The absolute Good). If there is no God, there are no objective moral values and then everything is permissible as long as you personally feel what you are doing is "Right." I think this is very dangerous to believe.
Correct, thats precisely why supernatual events are hogwash.
So supernatural events are hogwash because they can't be empirically proven? Could you please empirically prove to me that mathematics exist? Or Logic? Or Science for that matter. Since I'm assuming you can't, does that mean that Science is hogwash?
No in the grand scheme of thigns i don't beleive it is but i do beleive it is within the context of our current understanding of the mind, and our capacity to examine the and test the reality with whcih we are presented.
I don't think you can say yes it is one way.. but no it is another in the same statement.
Seriously? Thats rich, you're telling me im making claims i can't support, and then trying to convince me miracles a real, and the God parts the sea for his followers, and all the other absolute hogwash that goes with it, but no im the one maiing claims i can't support.
I cannot make a truth claim that I know these things to have happened. I can only say that I believe they could have and probably did.
No you are absolutely correct sorry about that, its very easyu to take an absolutist position when your not keeping check on your words. I beleive they didn't happen, and whats more im very sure those events (e.g. 90% degree of certainty) didn't happen but in all homesty they could have happened, there is no way for me to state categorically they didn't happen and i was wrong to do so.
You are quite forgiven, I knew you probably didn't mean to say it that way but you never know with the internet... hard to read between the lines :)
I don't have a version of events i just don't beleive in magic, call me crazy;-)
I wouldn't call you crazy, I would call you pragmatic to a fault :)
Your saying people can choose to beleive or not to beleive because God exists, and allows us to choose whether to beleive or not to beleive.
No not really, the phrasing previously may have been poor. I'm saying God created us with free will. With that free will you can either choose to love Him back or not. You're not believing that He exists falls into the "not loving Him back" camp.
Thats what you're saying now, thats not what i originally disputed, don't change your statement and then try to claim its what you were saying from the start, your orginal was quite clear, as was srom's i.e.
That's what I meant to say, sorry for the confusion.
I don't belweive it has been closed, far from it, but i refuse to accept that any of the stories in the bible that defy ordinary reality have any real basis exept in the minds of heavily indoctrinated individuals who lived before the age of enlightenment.
You are free to do so. I personally find it hard to believe that the writers of the Bible would be so meticulous with all of the history they record and then just randomly throw in miraculous events. You have to remember the historicity of the Bible can be traced back to within AT LEAST a decade or two of the original events. At that time, it was not beneficial to be a Christian as you were persecuted and killed so I see no reason they would make this up just to get themselves killed.
No i am a pantheist but i don't like to categorise myself.
I've always thought that was an interesting position which I found contradicting. If "all is one," then there is no ontological space for any kind of diversity, even in morality. The conclusion of that being under pantheism there would be no objective moral values?
Well i don't, i take a rational logical positivists view of reality, the parting of the sea is something i coulod never beleive in because it requires faith in supernatural forces, it has no more of a factual basis than most fairy tales or myths, this is not up for dispute.
The belief or non-belief in these events will stem from your world view, so if you believe the super natural can't happen of course you can't believe in some of these. I will point out however that it seems like you will not believe unless you have empirical evidence of it. It sounds like this is the problem... if there is a super-natural event you cannot empirically prove it because the mere definition of super-natural would imply something which cannot be empirically proven, right?
The only kind of truth that can be beleived is objectively veriable truth, that effectively eliminates every supernatural story in the bible.
I would ask.. Is it an objectively verifiable truth that the only kind of truth that can be believed is non-supernatural?
For this I will defer to the great William Lane Craig:
Of special note:
Objection #1:The Challenge of Verificationism
The first challenge is that religious claims cannot be verified using the 5 senses, and therefore religious statements are objectively meaningless.
Consider the statement “Only propositions that can be verified with the 5 senses are meaningful”. That statement cannot be verified with the 5 senses. If the statement is true, it makes itself meaningless. It’s self-refuting.
You're missing my point completely, were relying on evidence given by people who were already convinced this man was the son of God, i don't beleive it is within the bounds of reality for a man to rise from the dead unless he was not actually dead. My ponit is that there is no evidence for this, you have to beleive the words of men that lived millenia ago, its ridiculous, id be mroe prepared to beleive in crop circles and alien abductions, at least i can interview those me myself.
No I think I understand your point, I just don't accept it. You see if you read the Bible you can clearly see that the apostles were all bummed out because they were just witness to God-in-the-flesh being murdered! They did not completely believe until they were in his presence after he was resurrected.
Although with that being said... I suppose we should ignore Caesar as well? Based on your criteria anyways
http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence
Thats probably the fundamental flaw of Christianity.
I would disagree, I see it as its main strength. It was God reaching out to us and giving us a way back to Him.
Im saying that many of the people and places detailed in the bible existed but then Jesus comes in and waves his magic wand, that what never transpired, thats exactly what is not meant to be taken literally.
You keep making truth claims that you can't support. I don't mind if you say "that may never have transpired" but you can't honestly tell me that they DIDN'T transpire as you were not there and there is written evidence showing that these certain events did transpire. You call the writers unreliable but you'll forgive me if I accept their version of the events over yours as they were actually alive when they would have happened.
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