Why did God create humans?

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Gixer
"I dare you to find someone who lives the life Jesus taught yet makes the world a worse place."

Well we could start of with the Pope if you like.


...-Gixer

What example did you have in mind? I honestly dont know enough of him to say much, but I'd be interested in your view of how he made the world worse.


Or were you thinkning of Mother Theresa?

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Simaril
Well, if Jefferson said it, it must be true!

Well, if it's in the bible, it must be true!

Wait, he said "all men are created equal and are endowed with inalienable rights..." while he owned slaves....

I don't imagine anyone arguing the validity of the bible should be casting stones about consistancy.

[Munkii]

Hey I godwin'ed this thread dammit.

The Pope is a Nazi. Was.. err?? whatever.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Simaril
Lastly, if there is no God, there is no absolute. If there is no absolute morality, there can be no "good" or "evil" -- just socially determined conventions, chosen collectively by each society. No one morality can be "better" than the other, for there can be no yardstick to compare them with.

If the bible is interpreted different ways by different people, than how is it's utility as a moral yardstick any better or worse than any other?  We have certainly seen people's interpretation of the bible to justify all kinds of "evils".  



Hey Nuke, I'll go out on a limb.  If the experiments are such as Grunherz described them, then yes matter can be created out of nothing (or at least out of something we don't understand yet).

[Gixer]

Originally posted by Simaril
What example did you have in mind? I honestly dont know enough of him to say much, but I'd be interested in your view of how he made the world worse.


Or were you thinkning of Mother Theresa?

Well for one his ban of condoms and contraception. And the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives through the spread of AIDS.


....-Gixer

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Gixer
Well for one his ban of condoms and contraception. And the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives through the spread of AIDS.


....-Gixer

For every fault you find they'll explain it as a misinterpretation by man... . Either that or "he has a plan for us all".

[Hangtime]

OK, I'm open for rational debate. And whoever this "grumpy old man" is, I suggest that he (and those who share his biases) are choosing to forget many of their intellectual forebears. I challenge anyone to say that Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, and (to fast foreward to the 20th century) C.S. Lewis were idiots. I guess I msut assume that you, Hangtime, have never read their works -- because if you had, you couldnt possibly believe that it is impossible to be intellectual and believe at the same time.

See.. there yah go again.. diving right into the cultist capability of knowing exactly what's motivationg an intellectual mind... in your early examples the choice they had was a publicly pious forbearance of religious drivel or death as a heritc or witch. In your latter examples you include me in believing that it's not possible to entertain faith in the same brain as brilliance.

I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith - it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe; which leads us to this unhappy lil data point.. religious zealotry has killed more people than any natural disaster.. including those that were attributed to 'god'.

History Lesson: Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky to save youself, your nation or your loved ones because 'god' is not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less.

What we do with ouselves and our lives, whether we are happy or unhappy-- live or die-- is strictly our business and the universe et al just doesn't care. In fact, you are your own universe and as such should be held accountable as the only cause of all your troubles. At best, the most any of us can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as the next guy... So quit sniveling and face up to it-- 'Thou art God!'

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Thrawn
If the bible is interpreted different ways by different people, than how is it's utility as a moral yardstick any better or worse than any other?  We have certainly seen people's interpretation of the bible to justify all kinds of "evils".  

 

Thrawn, you've ignored the main point --  the inability of the relativist to issue moral condemnation of obvious evil like Hitler's -- to make a realtivistic stab at the bible. The point isnt how people choose to take the bible, its what the bible actually says.

When the book is taken as a whole, the various interpretations are questions of shading, not of core message. That alone makes your question spurious. Do any honest interpretaions of the bible cliam that it teaches murder is good? That we should take what we can while we can, that might makes right?

We've all seen the trick whereby people can snip individual words or phrases from an article to make it seem to say something very different than was really there. The same is commonly done with the bible; but I've yet to see the unified themes of the bible, or its specific  teachings (by topic, not by snipped edits) result in evil.

[Hangtime]

Originally posted by Simaril
Thrawn, you've ignored the main point --  the inability of the relativist to issue moral condemnation of obvious evil like Hitler's -- to make a realtivistic stab at the bible. The point isnt how people choose to take the bible, its what the bible actually says.

When the book is taken as a whole, the various interpretations are questions of shading, not of core message. That alone makes your question spurious. Do any honest interpretaions of the bible cliam that it teaches murder is good? That we should take what we can while we can, that might makes right?

We've all seen the trick whereby people can snip individual words or phrases from an article to make it seem to say something very different than was really there. The same is commonly done with the bible; but I've yet to see the unified themes of the bible, or its specific  teachings (by topic, not by snipped edits) result in evil.

What.. it takes religous training to recognize morality? That the diffrence between 'bad' and 'evil' are mutually exclusive by definition without a religionist to filter it for us?

Re: the bible.. see my previous. Anybody can argue anything, prove anything by quoting passages outta that revisionist re-write of the history of mans tribal incompatibility with the folks next door.

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Hangtime
See.. there yah go again.. diving right into the cultist capability of knowing exactly what's motivationg an intellectual mind... in your early examples the choice they had was a publicly pious forbearance of religious drivel or death as a heritc or witch. In your latter examples you include me in believing that it's not possible to entertain faith in the same brain as brilliance....

'

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm having trouble following your argument.

You seem to be confusing your history, at the very least, because Augustine lived in the Roman Empire during a time when only about 1/5 was Christian. Constantine had stopped teh persecution of Christians forty years before, but no one was persecuted for being a pagan in Augustines time. Aquinas was a medieval scholar of prodgious intellect, whose PRIMARY efforts were spent exploring the philosophic underpinnings of Christian faith. He lived over 200 years before the inquisition, which (it appears) seems to form your central picture of pre-reformation Christianity.

I guess I'm having troubel seeing where that intellectual mind of yours is making its appearance....

Are you honestly saying that Augustine and Aquinas didnt believe the core of their lives' work? (BTW, I am not catholic)  

And, about your comment that I was "diving into the motivations of the intellectual mind" -- forgive me for making the assumption, but I took your calling believers "weakminded religious cultists" to mean that you thought they weren't intellectuals. If this was a misunderstanding, please clarify for me how you intended these words to be taken.

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Hangtime
What.. it takes religous training to recognize morality? That the diffrence between 'bad' and 'evil' are mutually exclusive by definition without a religionist to filter it for us?

Re: the bible.. see my previous. Anybody can argue anything, prove anything by quoting passages outta that revisionist re-write of the history of mans tribal incompatibility with the folks next door.

Hangtime, I think you're missing the point. I'm not saying that only the religious can tell what's right or wrong -- I'm saying that if everything is realtive, if there is no absolute, then no individual can describe anyone else's behavior as wrong!

If there is no meaning to life, if there is no such thing as an extra-dimensional frame of reference, then morality becomes a social convention an nothing more.

In other words, the materialist is left in the intolerable position of saying that Hitlers only problem was that he was outvoted.

If he had stayed allied with Stalin, and if the axis had won, then genocide would be the socially acceptable "norm" for most of the earth's surface. It would have been a moral right, because that's what the predominant society chose as its foundation.

Is that the moral world you want to profess? If not, on what BASIS do you choose to call Hitler evil?

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Hangtime
snip

Re: the bible.. see my previous. Anybody can argue anything, prove anything by quoting passages outta that revisionist re-write of the history of mans tribal incompatibility with the folks next door.

Have you actually read this book you're trashing? you're throwing some incredibly intense verbiage around; on what do you base this description? You've claimed internal contradictions -- what are they?

What data backs up your calling the bible a "revisionist re-write?"

While I agree that the tabloid headline approach to doctrine can make anything SEEM to be biblical, I woudl strongly argue that what the bible actually does say -- when one takes the effort of clarifying passages that could be taken several ways, by reading other passages on the same topic -- is pretty clear, extraordinarily consistant, and generally approved as a pretty good way to look at life.

[Hangtime]

I'm questioning your faith...

Demonstrate "God"; the current model please. The resale value on the pre & post revisonist models is  comming in at under book value as of late.

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Hangtime
I'm questioning your faith...

Demonstrate "God"; the current model please. The resale value on the pre & post revisonist models is  comming in at under book value as of late.

Ummmmmm............



very cute soundbite, but I guess it looks like a politician's master bob-and-weave technique to me.


How about answering the issues above first, some of which you raised -- and to which I responded?

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Gixer
Well for one his ban of condoms and contraception. And the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives through the spread of AIDS.


....-Gixer

Once you said "the pope", I was caught by a problem: first, I dont know anything about his life except what the media tells me, although it appears that by most accounts the guy's done a lot of good; second, that his responsibility to his institution may distort the effect of his personal life.

For example, the pope chose to deal with the US priest scandal in a way that weighed forgiveness to the priests over the damage done to the abused parishoners.

I put out a challenge that I honestly cant fully defend, because I dont know the lives of the people that will come up. Of course, I had in mind people like Jim Elliot, Dr. Stanley Livingston, Wibur Wilberforce, etc.