Theology

[Buster Bluth]

Yes. Catholic theology (and Aristotelian philosophy before it) believes strongly in Consilience; which, in the philosophical realm, is probably best articulated by CS Lewis' concept of the Tao:



It strikes me as odd that most atheists insist on strict consilience in the empirical realm, but are so tolerant of incoherence in their metaphysical and moral outlooks.



Evolution, Dawkins' "altruism" genes, etc. cannot be the basis for an authoritative morality, because evolution is an arbitrary process. Order does not spontaneously arise out of chaos.



If an objective cosmic order exists, then they're all reflective of it (to varying degrees). If no such objective cosmic order exists, then they're all empty and utterly devoid of authority. There's no 3rd coherent alternative.



"Objective morality does not exist. Only our collective will." That is text book Nietzsche. I understand that you probably aren't comfortable with the label of "nihilist", but you haven't really distinguished your views from his.



If the source of what you're calling "morality" isn't metaphysical, then it's devoid of authority. And as I mentioned above, the differences in morality between various cultures does not disprove Natural Law one bit.



Maybe not, but it's the only coherent alternative to nihilism. Despite all his hand-waving about genetics, Dawkins is still just painting a smiley face on Nietzsche.

 

[Cackalacky]

Yes. Catholic theology (and Aristotelian philosophy before it) believes strongly in Consilience; which, in the philosophical realm, is probably best articulated by CS Lewis' concept of the Tao

It strikes me as odd that most atheists insist on strict consilience in the empirical realm, but are so tolerant of incoherence in their metaphysical and moral outlooks.

C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man, “Men Without Chests”: A Critique | The AntiNietzsche

“What Lewis is doing here [Abolition of Man] (as he does in most of his apologetic works) is setting up a false dichotomy, infused with imaginative hyperbole: either educators teach a student to give full credence to the objective truth of his emotional introspections, or they “have cut out of his soul.”[9] Lewis presents no logical, coherent argument to support any of his claims, other than his own subjective opinion that he is clearly right on this matter. It is not self-evidently true how explaining to a young student that our tendencies to attribute traits to inanimate objects is a reflection of our own personal feelings about the object and not an actual attribute of the object, will cause them to develop long-lasting character deficiencies. When I stub my toe on my coffee table, my instinctive reaction is to curse the table for hurting me. I know that the table is not alive; I know that the table didn’t actually set out to hurt me; I know that the table is not malicious; I know that the foul words I’m attributing to the table are a subjectively emotional response, and not an actual reflection of the table itself; I know that the table cannot hear or sympathize with me, but I still can’t help but animate the inanimate object. Why?—Because I’m human, and I can’t control the chemistry in my brain that dictates my responses to the stimuli of my environment. Knowing and recognizing this reality has not hindered, or stunted, my emotional development, nor has it done so for anybody else. And even if it did have negative repercussion to our human psyche, this still would not be an argument against the veracity of our emotional attributes to the surrounding world being an entirely subjective experience. As it stands, Lewis’ entire reasoning for opposing this view rests on the basis that he finds it unpleasant and harmful. To which the only salient response can be, so what? The veracity of a claim does not depend on its supposed bleakness and implication of unpleasantness.
Lewis also tries to give further authority to his position by claiming how, prior to modern times, all men believed that, “objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval and disapproval, our reverence or our contempt.”[10] Prior to modern times, men also attributed the occurrence of epilepsy to demonic possession, instead of a treatable neurological disorder; the mistaken beliefs of the past need not hold credence to us in the present, especially as we gather more information and knowledge about the world. Also, the claim that objects can merit approval and disapproval is a baseless assertion. Objects can cause us to respond towards them in one manner or another, but they do not merit our response, since objects are devoid of any kind of intent, and thereby, do not/cannot strive to live up to anyone’s conceived expectations. Not to mention, out responses to objects are entirely dependent on the context of the situation we find ourselves in, and likely to change under different circumstances. Hence, our emotional responses remain a subjective experience every way one wishes to look at it.”
“A frustrating part about Lewis is his apparent inability to differentiate between the objective fact of a matter (such as the fact that I happen to have feelings XYZ about an object), and the subjective response that stems from it (the actual emotions caused by feelings XYZ, the specifics of which, in any particular situation, are unique to me alone). He states, “It can be reasonable or unreasonable only if it conforms or fails to conform to something else,”[15] in an attempt to make his notion of an absolute objective value sound assertive. But being assertive doesn’t make an unfounded claim any more true, because even if one grants the veracity of his statement (namely, that we judge things as reasonable only as they pertain to other things), this admission does not warrant the stipulation of any sort of objective, or absolute, greater value judgment. Our interactions with our surroundings foster the values and emotional responses we attribute to objects/matters; meaning that we are the fundamental arbitrators of our perceptive values. Furthermore, our values and emotional responses change as we gain more information and data about out surroundings. No universally objective point of reference is needed. This does not invalidate the reality of our emotional experiences, but it is nonsensical for Lewis to claim that the mere existence of our emotional experiences must also confirm the existence of some kind of objective source for our emotions.”
“The message Lewis is presenting to the reader here is that one cannot disagree with what he has said, because only those who accept his premises of an absolute, objective, value have any basis upon which to argue about truth. Of course, this is completely dishonest and unfounded to anyone who does not already agree with Lewis’ [subjective] point of view. The authors of the textbook he has been arguing against don’t say that there exists no means by which to perceive truth, nor is there any rational extension by which one can make such a claim (this is another one of Lewis’ retreats to fallacies). Instead, what they rightly say is that one’s personal feelings on a matter are irrelevant when it comes to evaluating reality, because reality is not contingent on the perceptions of any person’s emotional response to it; nor does it ultimately care about your meager opinions. But Lewis cannot accept this, which is why this entire lecture can be summarized as follows: “I don’t like the implication of X, therefore X needs to be wrong.” His entire justification of the objective truth of emotional responses collapses into one giant emotional response; one subjectively giant emotional response.”

Regarding imagining a new color etc… primary colors are specifically light at a specific wavelength. I don’t have to imagine it because all the colors that are capable of being created are limited by our ability to perceive them with our eyes, which in turn have their own limitations. Further the red you see is not what I may see and is most definitely what a bird will see as they have more ocular rods and cones. We can however create many different hues by mixing wavelengths to create other hues or colors. Further I can quite easily imagine what it is like to view the sky of another star. There are quite literally billions of possibilities. This requires no metaphysical inspiration at all. I can simply look through a telescope or read a great piece of fiction.

Bhuddists have no concept of marriage, property rights, and a very strong conceptual objection of body mutilation, and murder of living things. This is quite clearly different from the Abrahamic traditions as well as Roman and Greek intellectual processes. Why did circumcision evolve in one part of the world and yet be anathema to an adjoining group of people.

I am not really moved by CS Lewis’ concept of how right he thinks he is and as the person critiquing your citation says, his points really boil down to a subjective emotional response.

Evolution, Dawkins' "altruism" genes, etc. cannot be the basis for an authoritative morality, because evolution is an arbitrary process. Order does not spontaneously arise out of chaos.

If order did not arise from chaos, we would not exist. Of course it does and nature is very efficient at it. From pairign of chemicals through bond, the formation of tissues from cells, etc.. It happens all the time.

Luckily evolution is not the wholly owned subsidiary of Dawkins and genetic mutation. It is so natural in fact that the concept is applicable to anything in our physical world. We use selection procedures to generate food, grow certain animals, determine what flowers and plants can be sold at Lowes during a certain part of the year, and even create specific tools or instruments like antennae for satellites to optimize gain and broadcast capabilities (http://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/150GA/handouts/zitzler04.pdf).

Because evolution appears as an arbitrary process does not mean it is arbitrary. What the process acts on is random to an extent, but in fact, selective pressures are not random and are typically very specific with results that appear over and over again (Convergent evolution). Particularly with humans (Introduction to Human Evolution | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program) and civilization (http://duaneelgin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/self_guiding_evolution.pdf), common and recurring or converging patterns form from those very non-random selection sources. Naturally evolving biological objects are not directed by a moral authority. A whale did not need morals to evolve a fin from its original fingered land-based hands. Amphibians needed no moral authority to develop lungs and retain gills in order to take advantage of the interface of water/ land, leading to non-competitive resources. This process is a natural one and all living beings are subject to environmental pressures over time that result in changes to form, function and behavior. Its not willed by metaphysical means.

Likewise, humans, who were unaware of the Catholic theology or any theology for that matter, when there were at least 3 or more distinct upright hominids who interacted and even bred with each other. (The Case of the Missing Human Ancestor). We know now that our DNA has at least two and maybe three parts originating from the Neanderthals and possibly the Denisovans. They operated within a realm that did not include a fully functioning society but and at most did involve burials and ancestor worship (common to eastern societies) so it is not surprising to see that things like this carried through as they served at least a good benefit or a non-harmful behavior.

Is it really hard to see how people who respect objective analysis and materialistic answers to our natural world do not require metaphysical answers, since they can neither be measured, counted, generated, or confirmed? Your analogy of the Necessary Being and its inability to have meaning is about as far as one can take the theology in logical analysis.

If an objective cosmic order exists, then they're all reflective of it (to varying degrees). If no such objective cosmic order exists, then they're all empty and utterly devoid of authority. There's no 3rd coherent alternative.

That is an a big IF from which to proceed. The third alternative is that they exist because we create them.

“Our morality is evolved.
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, said Dobzhansky, and morality certainly makes no sense except as the product of our evolutionary heritage. Our moral sense is one of a number of systems developed by evolution to do a job: the immune systems counters infection, the visual system gives us information about the world, and our moral feelings are there as a social glue to enable us to cooperate with other humans.
As a product of blind Darwinian evolution, our morals will have developed solely from the pragmatic consideration of what works, what enables us to benefit from cooperation and thus leave more descendants. For interacting with another human, what matters is not what is “objectively” moral (whatever that means), but what that human considers to be moral.
Human intuition that morality is objective is really the only argument (if we are honest) that that is the case. And yet evolution doesn’t operate according to what “is moral”, it operates according to what helps someone to have more descendants. Thus, even if there were an “absolute” morality, there is no reason to suppose that it would have any connection to our own human sense of morality. Anyone arguing for objective morality by starting with human morality and intuition — which of course is how it is always done — is thus basing their case on a non sequitur.
(2) Humans are only one species.
An objective morality must, by definition, be independent of human opinion and thus be independent of humans. There are trillions of galaxies in the known universe, each with trillions of stars and trillions of planets, and for all we know there may be millions of species on many of those planets.
And yet, surprise surprise, the “objective” moral systems that people argue for are all about human welfare and just happen to bear a striking resemblance to the morals of that one species of ape on just one planet around a fairly unremarkable star in a fairly unremarkable galaxy. This is simply projection, human hubris.
Medieval theologians placed humans at the centre of the universe; aren’t we above projecting our own parochial notions of social interactions into some sort of objective property of the universe? Isn’t it obvious that our social interactions (and thus our moral senses) will depend on the details of our species and our ecological niche?
A K-selected species would have very different morality from an r-selected species. Ahaplodiploid or eusocial species would have very different morality from us. So would species where hareems are normal. Morality would be very different in territorial animals than in non-territorial animals. And who knows what variations there are strewn across the trillions of galaxies in the visible universe? And yet people want to consider one species alone from one planet alone and project that onto everything else!
(3) Starting from “well being” is subjective.
Many attempts at establishing an objective morality try to argue from considerations of human well-being. OK, but who decided that human well-being is what is important? We did! This whole enterprise starts with a subjective leap. Yes, human well-being is what morality is all about but human well-being is all about human feelings and preferences, and is thus subjective.
(4) Aggregation schemes are arbitrary.
So you’ve decided that well-being is what matters. Good start. But, if you want to arrive at an objective morality you now need a scheme for aggregating the well-beings of many creatures onto some objective scale, such that you can read off what you “should” do and how you “should” balance the competing interests of different people.
The beauty of accepting that morality is ultimately subjective is that you reject the whole concept of objective aggregation onto an absolute scale, and thus an otherwise insoluble problem disappears.
Of course many people have proposed their own schemes for aggregating, based on their own preferences, but no-one has derived one from objective reasoning. You might consider it “obvious” that everyone counts equally. But then your “objective” morality would require you to treat your own family identically to an unrelated stranger in a distant country. That’s flat out contrary to human nature (and illustrates why we wouldn’t actually want any of these “objective” schemes).
And of course you also have to aggregate across species (I’m presuming the “objective” morality is not medieval-theological enough to think that humans are the centre of the universe and the only thing that counts). Could there really be an objective weighting scheme for aggregating the interests of different species? How is this going to work concerning predators and prey?
Accepting that morality is subjective avoids all this by simply accepting that our morality is indeed subjectively about us, programmed into us to regulate interactions with our own species, and thus that our morality is only about us. Other social species would then have their own sense of morality for interactions within their species (which of course they do).
(5) Rooting morality in “God” is still arbitrary.
A favourite argument of the religious is that you can’t have objective morality without a god. And they are right. What they don’t realise, though, is that you also can’t have an objective morality with a god. After all, plumping for “God’s opinion” instead of human opinion is equally subjective. Who says that God’s opinion about morality is better than Satan’s opinion? The answer that God says that God’s opinion is better is simply circular. The answer “might makes right” is a non sequitur, as is the unsubstantiated claim that being the creator conveys rights to dictate morality.
The traditional response would be to argue that God’s nature is good, which is an appeal to some supra-God objective standard of goodness against which to measure God’s nature. Of course this begs the whole question as to what this objective standard is and where it came from, and so doesn’t begin to actually establish objective morality. And if there were this supra-God objective standard then we wouldn’t need God. Theologians have got nowhere is addressing these problems in the thousands of years since Plato pointed them out.
(6) No-one has any idea what “objective” morality even means.
Lastly, and actually the strongest argument of all, no-one has ever proposed any coherent account of what “objective morality” would even mean! Yes, humans have an intuition about it, but that intuition was programmed for purely subjective and pragmatic reasons (see 1), and thus is a hopeless base for establishing absolute morality.
When asked, the advocate of absolute morality explains that it is concerned with what one “should do”, regardless of human opinion or desire. When asked what “should do” means they’ll replace it with a near synonym, explaining that it is what one “ought to do”. But if you press further they’ll simply retreat into circularity, explaining that what you “ought” to do is what you “should” do, and thus beg the whole question. They can’t do any better than that, though they’ll likely appeal to human intuition, which won’t do for the reasons above.
The subjectivist has a clear answer here. The “oughts” and “shoulds” are rooted in human opinion, they are what people would like to happen. Thus morality is of the form “George is of the opinion that you should …” or “human consensus is that you should …” or “people have an emotional revulsion to …”. But, without the subject doing the feeling and opining, morality would not make sense. Morality is all about what other humans think about someone’s actions — that is why evolution programmed moral senses into us. Remove that subjective human opinion and the result is — literally — nonsensical.
Six reasons why objective morality is nonsense | coelsblog

"Objective morality does not exist. Only our collective will." That is text book Nietzsche. I understand that you probably aren't comfortable with the label of "nihilist", but you haven't really distinguished your views from his.

See above. Nietchze is not the only alternative. In fact nihilism is not really even a real possibility, so please stop conflating subjective moralism with nihilism. In fact there are many alternatives, and they are of our own creation. Further, nihlism indicates there are no morals and no purpose for them I do not contend that. I believe they exist and that we create them.

If the source of what you're calling "morality" isn't metaphysical, then it's devoid of authority. And as I mentioned above, the differences in morality between various cultures does not disprove Natural Law one bit.

Again see above. You are interjecting an authority and holding it as a precept for all human cultures. There need not be one except that which we create and allow. Moral authority is an Aristotlean concept. Many cultures existed and were operating at very high levels independent of Greek logic and therefore have no basis in Western Culture.

Maybe not, but it's the only coherent alternative to nihilism. Despite all his hand-waving about genetics, Dawkins is still just painting a smiley face on Nietzsche.

No. Dawkins is small potatoes in the context of evolution. I don’t think I even brought him up. I understand since he is the poster boy for evolution and atheism why you would select him, but there are far more scientists who research evolution that are not atheistic and are also subjective moralists. Again I believe that morals exist, have purpose, and are even necessary for our cultures.

I put alot of time into this and I hope it meets you well.

 

[pkt77242]

That's fine. Some of the most intelligent posters on this board are apparently atheists as well.



What do you consider "morally sound"? Objective morality doesn't really square with atheism.

You made some sweeping statements about where the limits of religious liberty in America should be set; that's what I was responding to.

Actually there are a fair number of Atheists who do believe in Objective Morality. They just don't believe that it comes from God.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Actually there are a fair number of Atheists who do believe in Objective Morality. They just don't believe that it comes from God.

<----

I'm curious to know why you don't think they mesh well, Whiskey.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Or...

1. Jesus was an Jewish preacher of the apocalyptic variety (quite popular in 1st century Judea) who was likely a disciple of John the Baptist and eventually branched off on his own. He preached that the end of the world was coming soon and that the Son of Man, not speaking of himself, would come to judge the living and the dead. He lived, begrudgingly, under Roman rule. He, and nearly all Jews, saw this as an occupation of God's people and land. Jesus privately claimed to be the Messiah, the one who would push the Romans out of Judea and start the Kingdom of God. He promised the twelve apostles that they would be leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel (Judas included), and that we would rule God's kingdom above them as King.

As Jesus' ministry picked up steam among the poor, coincidentally Pontius Pilate came to town (from his administrative post in Caesarea) during Passover, the time of year when Jews celebrated Moses freeing them from the Egyptians and thus when anti-Roman sentiment reached an annual high point. Pontius Pilate, already having been removed from office twice by Augustus for being too brutal, brought troops with him to crucify those who wished to attempt to overthrow Roman rule. Judas, for reasons unknown, told the authorities that Jesus had been privately telling them that he was the Jewish Messiah who will do just that. He brought them to Jesus and he was swiftly crucified, with "King of the Jews" being written above his cross as a warning to others.

Immediately upon Jesus' death his followers believed in his resurrection from the dead. They claimed that he was the Son of Man he was referencing, and they he will return shortly to judge everyone. The Kingdom of God moved from a Earthly realm to a celestial realm. Early followers believed that God had anointed Jesus and raised him up past the likes of Moses and Elijah. Others believed he was now a god. Others believes he was an angel who took human form and was then anointed by God. Other believes that he was adopted by God, became Son of God, and was to inherit the whole Earth, in a similar way that Caesar adopted Octavian to inherit Roman rule. Mark hints that he became Son of God at his baptism, Matthew and Luke indicate that he became Son of God at his birth, and in John Jesus was the Son of God since before creation. They sorted all this out centuries later at Nicea and the rest is history.



2. I have problems with that line of thinking. What about people to which he did not reveal himself? Whiskey, I believe, told me that Catholicism is not the only way to "the Father," but simply the best way. It's how he explained that even pre-Columbian Native Americans could go to Heaven, due to objective moral truths. Which one of you is wrong?

3. I would also claim that Jesus only made "bold statements about being the only way..." in the Gospel of John. John being the last of the gospels, written during the height of the "was he actually God?" debate. Why won't his claims of being God show up in Mark?



4. I would agree, but I don't think your views line up with history either.



That's a fair statement.

1. The problem with this view is that it completely throws away all accounts from those who were disciples (or distorts them to an agenda) and pays not attention to tradition as it was handed down by the Church.

You can use an amalgamation of Ehrman and other neu-atheists but it doesn't stand the test of time. Much of Ehrman's criticisms have been refuted by scholars when they originally surfaced but Ehrman has the credentials and given it a new label, but it's the same old error.

Not to mention that when you reduce this view to it's conclusion you get one thing: rejection of historical understanding and the Church who was responsible for putting the Bible together and instead stand on heresies reinterpreted by a man removed 2000ish years from Christ's time on earth. One must use the modern framework to reimagine some conception of Jesus that allows them to sleep at night so they don't feel like they outright rejected who He was, instead they can point the finger at the Church and say it is a distorted message.

2. Neither of us is wrong. I believe the exact same thing as Whiskey. We've moved forward and were considering who Christ was, not what was the answer for salvation pre-Christ and I didn't make a value judgement on that. A God who is love, who chose a time and place to bring about a grand redemption would not have damned all those prior from accessing his love or achieving the beatific vision. Morality as judged by an external reference point has always been present and was merely put into salvific form by the incarnation of Christ. Prior to that, I can only assume God judges those by the merits of their heart.

3. You're asking me to reconsider who Christ was because the Bible isn't explicit enough for you? Or because all of the Gospels don't mirror one another in their statements and you'd prefer it if Christ made mention of his Godhood in multiple accounts? I'll see if He's amenable to these terms but this isn't really an objection.

4. Who's history don't my view line up with? Ehrmans? I'm guessing you understand the errancy of revisionist history and you've read the counter arguments to Ehrman's claims?

Spoiler alert: He hasn't found anything new.

Old errors, New labels.

 

[pkt77242]

1. The problem with this view is that it completely throws away all accounts from those who were disciples (or distorts them to an agenda) and pays not attention to tradition as it was handed down by the Church.

You can use an amalgamation of Ehrman and other neu-atheists but it doesn't stand the test of time. Much of Ehrman's criticisms have been refuted by scholars when they originally surfaced but Ehrman has the credentials and given it a new label, but it's the same old error.

Not to mention that when you reduce this view to it's conclusion you get one thing: rejection of historical understanding and the Church who was responsible for putting the Bible together and instead stand on heresies reinterpreted by a man removed 2000ish years from Christ's time on earth. One must use the modern framework to reimagine some conception of Jesus that allows them to sleep at night so they don't feel like they outright rejected who He was, instead they can point the finger at the Church and say it is a distorted message.

2. Neither of us is wrong. I believe the exact same thing as Whiskey. We've moved forward and were considering who Christ was, not what was the answer for salvation pre-Christ and I didn't make a value judgement on that. A God who is love, who chose a time and place to bring about a grand redemption would not have damned all those prior from accessing his love or achieving the beatific vision. Morality as judged by an external reference point has always been present and was merely put into salvific form by the incarnation of Christ. Prior to that, I can only assume God judges those by the merits of their heart.

3. You're asking me to reconsider who Christ was because the Bible isn't explicit enough for you? Or because all of the Gospels don't mirror one another in their statements and you'd prefer it if Christ made mention of his Godhood in multiple accounts? I'll see if He's amenable to these terms but this isn't really an objection.

4. Who's history don't my view line up with? Ehrmans? I'm guessing you understand the errancy of revisionist history and you've read the counter arguments to Ehrman's claims?

Spoiler alert: He hasn't found anything new.

Old errors, New labels.

The only original Disciple of Jesus to write anything in the Bible is Peter (one of the Epistles of Peter is probably his and the other one is most likely not). The Gospels were written by people who most likely never met Jesus let alone followed him and so are at best 2 or 3 hand info. Paul never met the living Jesus as well, so his info is at best 2nd hand if not even farther removed. So what disciples accounts are we really disregarding?

Yes I know that many people think that the John one of the apostles wrote the Gospel of John and a few other books but that is debatable and has been question since are 200 AD.

 

[Buster Bluth]

1. The problem with this view is that it completely throws away all accounts from those who were disciples (or distorts them to an agenda) and pays not attention to tradition as it was handed down by the Church.

Do we have original accounts from them? How do you throw away something that you don't have?

You can use an amalgamation of Ehrman and other neu-atheists but it doesn't stand the test of time. Much of Ehrman's criticisms have been refuted by scholars when they originally surfaced but Ehrman has the credentials and given it a new label, but it's the same old error.

Please elaborate, I'm sincerely interested. I've been an atheist for far longer than I've been a reader of Ehrman, so please inform of me of why he's wrong.

Not to mention that when you reduce this view to it's conclusion you get one thing: rejection of historical understanding and the Church who was responsible for putting the Bible together and instead stand on heresies reinterpreted by a man removed 2000ish years from Christ's time on earth. One must use the modern framework to reimagine some conception of Jesus that allows them to sleep at night so they don't feel like they outright rejected who He was, instead they can point the finger at the Church and say it is a distorted message.

I feel like you're putting words in my mouth here, or rather, thoughts in my brain. I don't need to reimagine Jesus. Jesus has almost nothing to do with why I reject Christianity and religion.

2. Neither of us is wrong. I believe the exact same thing as Whiskey. We've moved forward and were considering who Christ was, not what was the answer for salvation pre-Christ and I didn't make a value judgement on that. A God who is love, who chose a time and place to bring about a grand redemption would not have damned all those prior to accessing his love or achieving the beatific vision. Morality as judged by an external reference point has always been present and was merely put into salvific form by the incarnation of Christ. Prior to that, I can only assume God judges those by the merits of their heart.

And so I, respectfully, think what you and Whiskey believe is nonsense. But honestly it's not worth discussing further.

3. You're asking me to reconsider who Christ was because the Bible isn't explicit enough for you? Or because all of the Gospels don't mirror one another in their statements and you'd prefer it if Christ made mention of his Godhood in multiple accounts? I'll see if He's amenable to these terms but this isn't really an objection.

I'm not asking you to do anything. But if nearly all of the accounts in which Jesus affirms that he is God are from the last Gospel, that, at a minimum, is pretty suspicious. That seems pretty important to not mention clearly and at great length in any of the other gospels, no? So is Ehrman making that up?

4. Who's history don't my view line up with? Ehrmans? I'm guessing you understand the errancy of revisionist history and you've read the counter arguments to Ehrman's claims?

Spoiler alert: He hasn't found anything new.

Old errors, New labels.

I've googled lightly for counter-arguments, to be fair. Point me in the right direction.

I don't think your view of Jesus lines up with history, because Jesus isn't god. I don't need Ehrman to see that.

 

[Bluto]

You can be an atheist and embrace objective morality. The idea of karma is a perfect example of this. You kill someone which therefore motivates the people affected by that to commit further violent acts. Which then creates a cycle of violence. Therefore killing someone is bad. No god needed.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Wrote a substantial response last night, but Internal Server Error prevented me from posting it. Will move most of this to the theology thread shortly and try to get around the error.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I put alot of time into this and I hope it meets you well.

And it shows. I hope my response will be worth of it. Only on IE... Anyway, here goes:

C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man, “Men Without Chests”: A Critique | The AntiNietzsche

First, I linked to an article on The Imaginative Conservative that discusses Lewis' concept of "the Tao"--which, in short, is the shared moral basis for most of the world's major faith traditions--as evidence why the rather superficial distinctions you were listing between different moral traditions isn't much of an argument against Natural Law.

Second, you don't have to agree with Lewis, and his style is definitely off-putting for some, but that's a really pedantic critique of The Abolition of Man. It's well worth a read, if you're at all inclined toward moral philosophy. But this isn't directly relevant to our topic here.

Regarding imagining a new color etc… primary colors are specifically light at a specific wavelength. I don’t have to imagine it because all the colors that are capable of being created are limited by our ability to perceive them with our eyes, which in turn have their own limitations. Further the red you see is not what I may see and is most definitely what a bird will see as they have more ocular rods and cones. We can however create many different hues by mixing wavelengths to create other hues or colors. Further I can quite easily imagine what it is like to view the sky of another star. There are quite literally billions of possibilities. This requires no metaphysical inspiration at all. I can simply look through a telescope or read a great piece of fiction.

That was simply a poetic flourish to emphasize Lewis' argument that morality (being objective) is discovered and either accepted or rejected, never created ex nihilo. Though props for the optics lesson.

Bhuddists have no concept of marriage, property rights, and a very strong conceptual objection of body mutilation, and murder of living things. This is quite clearly different from the Abrahamic traditions as well as Roman and Greek intellectual processes. Why did circumcision evolve in one part of the world and yet be anathema to an adjoining group of people.

Because it's an idiosyncratic cultural practice that originated in ancient Israel which doesn't have any real normative moral dimension to it.

I am not really moved by CS Lewis’ concept of how right he thinks he is and as the person critiquing your citation says, his points really boil down to a subjective emotional response.

If you'd like to debate Lewis, read him first. That "critique" is embarrassing.

If order did not arise from chaos, we would not exist. Of course it does and nature is very efficient at it.

We've been over this before. This is a simple cosmological assertion on your part, which is no more grounded in reason than theism. And I still maintain that the Argument from Contingency strongly favors the theists here.

From pairign of chemicals through bond, the formation of tissues from cells, etc.. It happens all the time.

Which brings us back to the question of First Mover, etc.

Because evolution appears as an arbitrary process does not mean it is arbitrary.

Perhaps "arbitrary" was the wrong word. "Mechanical" betters suits my argument here. And such mechanical laws are always descriptive, never normative. There is no moral aspect to evolution, so it's absurd to argue that evolution is the reason I ought not kill my neighbor and forcibly take his wife. "Ought" implies a duty that I have an obligation to fulfill. If it's simply the "herd instinct" programmed into the ancient parts of my brain that suggests I should refrain from doing such thing, that's merely a chemical reaction that I can choose to disregard. As long as I don't get caught, there's no negative consequence for me. The entire concept of justice is rendered incoherent without a shared objective moral basis to which different people can appeal.

What the process acts on is random to an extent, but in fact, selective pressures are not random and are typically very specific with results that appear over and over again (Convergent evolution).

Doesn't convergent evolution suggest that there are some inexplicably objective "rules" programmed into our universe? Not advancing a serious argument here; just didn't know if you'd encountered an explanation for how this convergence happens randomly.

Naturally evolving biological objects are not directed by a moral authority.

Obviously not. As I mentioned above, it's a mechanical law of nature.

[The above contains the first ~40% of my response. Can't figure out how to get the last half or so around the ISE. Hopefully starting a new post will help.]

 

[Whiskeyjack]

[Ugh. I really had to butcher this 2nd half to get it past the ISE]

A whale did not need morals to evolve a fin from its original fingered land-based hands. Amphibians needed no moral authority to develop lungs and retain gills in order to take advantage of the interface of water/ land, leading to non-competitive resources.

Those creatures lack the rational capacity to comprehend the cosmic order and make morally significant decisions.

Its not willed by metaphysical means.

Another simple cosmological assertion.

Likewise, humans, who were unaware of the Catholic theology or any theology for that matter, when there were at least 3 or more distinct upright hominids who interacted and even bred with each other. (The Case of the Missing Human Ancestor). We know now that our DNA has at least two and maybe three parts originating from the Neanderthals and possibly the Denisovans. They operated within a realm that did not include a fully functioning society but and at most did involve burials and ancestor worship (common to eastern societies) so it is not surprising to see that things like this carried through as they served at least a good benefit or a non-harmful behavior.

Not sure why we're going into such depth on evolution here. The evidence for it is overwhelming. I just don't believe it can be the source of a binding moral authority. That Stanford link you provided earlier might be helpful here. In the descriptive anthropological sense, "morality" can be attributed to evolution, as well as law, etiquette, religious practice, etc. But in the normative objective sense--a universal system comprehensible by and binding upon all rational beings--such a thing cannot be attributed to evolution. Evolution, as a mechanical law of nature, is a contingency; one gear in the Cosmological Clockwerk, if you will. Normative morality must be objective, which also means metaphysical/ supernatural, yet your worldview precludes the possibility of any objective law or being.

Is it really hard to see how people who respect objective analysis and materialistic answers to our natural world do not require metaphysical answers, since they can neither be measured, counted, generated, or confirmed?

First, I think my posting history to date clearly demonstrates that I also have a healthy respect for objective analysis and empiricism in general. But, as I pointed out earlier, I'm a strong believer in consilience, or the "Unity of Knowledge". It's arguably the bedrock assumption of the scientific method; Catholics simply employ it in the philosophical as well as the material world. And when I look for coherent explanations of philosophical truth, there is a stark dichotomy-- between Aristotle (who asserts a cosmic order, comprehensible by rational beings) and Nietzsche (who asserts the absence of such an order, and accurately diagnoses the consequences for humanity). There's no coherent alternative to those two. So I do have a hard time seeing how people who put such a high premium on consilience in their descriptions of the natural world are able to accept such incoherence in their metaphysical outlook. You might not be able to measure, count, generate or confirm it in a lab, but you can still discount a whole of philosophies through logic alone.

Your analogy of the Necessary Being and its inability to have meaning is about as far as one can take the theology in logical analysis.

That's a huge jump, though, no? If you, like me, find the Argument from Contingency to be compelling, you can't really call yourself an atheist anymore. Maybe you don't believe in a personal God, but you at least believe in something like God.

That is an a big IF from which to proceed. The third alternative is that they exist because we create them.

That's Nietsche! He explicitly rejected metaphysics, and correctly realized that-- without metaphysics-- normative morality was impossible. Only the "will to power" remains. What you're referring to as "morality" could be the result of a mechanical law like evolution, or simply the will of the a small group imposed on the majority. Either way, it's completely lacking in authority.

For interacting with another human, what matters is not what is “objectively” moral (whatever that means), but what that human considers to be moral.

Then "morality" is nothing more than another irrational impulse to be "seen through" once we understand the science behind it. Such impulses can be disregarded with impunity as an individual sees fit. Though it should be noted that "evolutionary psychology" is about as squishy as a discipline gets, and our understanding of the human brain is borderline medieval compared to most other aspects of biology.

It's getting late, and I don't have time to respond to the rest of Coel's arguments. Maybe tomorrow.

See above. Nietchze is not the only alternative. In fact nihilism is not really even a real possibility, so please stop conflating subjective moralism with nihilism. In fact there are many alternatives, and they are of our own creation. Further, nihlism indicates there are no morals and no purpose for them I do not contend that. I believe they exist and that we create them.

Nietzsche rejected metaphysics and the concept of objective normative morality. The subjective "morality" described by Coel is not even remotely comparable to Aristotle's. It's still Neitzschean, in that it argues that there is no meaningful authority behind human moral precepts (just a mechanical law of nature), so we should make it up ourselves. Will ourselves to greatness, or not. Whatever. It's all meaningless anyway.

Again see above. You are interjecting an authority and holding it as a precept for all human cultures. There need not be one except that which we create and allow. Moral authority is an Aristotlean concept. Many cultures existed and were operating at very high levels independent of Greek logic and therefore have no basis in Western Culture.

Moral authority derives from the realization that there is a cosmic order to the universe. See my post above regarding "the Tao". Most of the world's major religions assert a cosmic order, and thus are able to articulate a moral code predicated upon actual authority. You don't need Aristotle to recognize a transcendent order in the universe.

[T]here are far more scientists who research evolution that are not atheistic and are also subjective moralists. Again I believe that morals exist, have purpose, and are even necessary for our cultures.

The only coherent philosophy that could accommodate subjective morality is Nietzsche's. The "morals" you've described have no more authority than the rules of etiquette, and are equally hollow, since they derive from a mechanical process in nature.

Actually there are a fair number of Atheists who do believe in Objective Morality. They just don't believe that it comes from God.

I'm curious to know why you don't think they mesh well, Whiskey.

We live in a contingent universe. By definition, any objective "thing" must be supernatural. Whether you call it God, an abstract mathematical object, a super-intelligent alien that created our universe as a computer simulation, etc. is pretty much just semantics. If you believe in objective truth, you can't really be a materialist/ atheist.

On an important note, much love and respect to everyone who's participating in this erudite debate. I have very few outlets for this type of discussion.

 

[Emcee77]

Great, just great. I spent half my lunch break flipping back and forth between this thread and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and discovered ... that I really have nothing to add at this point. lol.

Well done fellas. My brain hurts, as I don't think it has used those muscles since college, but that was a great read.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I'm hoping OMM will drop some wisdom on us.

 

[Cackalacky]

 

[Old Man Mike]

Against my better judgement............

Firstly I have no wisdom to give. I'm one pretty limited guy just like the rest of you {if there are any who did not realize that they were limited in dealing with these topics, I apologize. A fine self image is priceless.}

My experience with these big questions is that no one Answers them [with a Capital A.] If you study all of philosophy's history, you read the Platos and Aristotles and Aquinases and Humes and Kants and even Nietzches writing feverishly and massively attempting to make headway by logic and "left-brained" intelligence alone. NONE succeed, and they were far better men than I.

But what I take from that entirety of human intellectual history is that we should not only NOT expect to convince anybody who insist on looking at these questions from a purely analytical [or even "evidential"] position, but we should remain humble ourselves. "I believe this, BUT I can't 'prove' it with linear intellectual language, SO I might be wrong about something."

Well, what good then is "philosophical argument" at all? In a profound truth-establishing sense, not good at all. BUT IT HAS ANOTHER REAL VALUE WHICH IS RARELY EVEN NOTICED, especially when people are debating rather than discussing or even getting emotional. What thinkers like Aristotle or Aquinas or Descartes or GK Chesterton can do, when they are at their best, is demonstrate that it is not insane nor foolish to think about things a certain way. They can't prove anything to the doubter demanding ironclad logic, but they can indicate to the sincerely questing mind that their point of view is not trivially conceived, nor, if honest, obviously false.

I gave up on the narrow left-brain-only approach to the big questions many years ago. What emerged for me [buoyed by the awareness that people like Aquinas had shown that their efforts were not those of madmen] was an awareness that I had a choice. I could decide to go full-out reductionist and concentrate only on the physical Universe and the wonders of Science, or I could intuit that there was profoundly more to it. Either "this is all there is" or "there is more; a spiritual aspect of reality" are equally unprovable analytically. ... and a true scientific scholar, who understands the "method", will admit that.

The choice then for me was to see myself living in a physical universe only, which reduced in the end to a cosmic meaninglessness, or go with an alternative model of existence which was founded upon meaning, both at my personal level and the sense of the entire creation. I choose the latter. Am I a fool? Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Chesterton et al say no. I to some degree then throw my "hat" in their ring.

Once living in that meaningful design, my life, my every non-trivial choice becomes filled with meaning and purpose and [if I do well as to right-living] joy. Joy, it is true, would still happen in the reductionist model, but it would be a deterministic "chemical" joy which, if analyzed philosophically would cast it back into fleeting triviality in the ultimate.

Others are of course welcome to their contrary views --- as long as their chemically-defined determined actions "luckily" turn out to be "nice." I'm going my way and trying very hard to use my free will soulful observations and understanding of sequences and therefore consequences and therefore responsibilities to make choices for love rather than blunt self-interest. I hope to use my spiritual freedom to be meaningfully "nice."

There are only five big things that I and we have been gifted for which we should thank the Giver every day:

1). Existence. That there is anything at all.
2). Evolution. That the Great Words which were embedded in the Original Event [we scientists call them "The Laws of Nature"] have been so brilliantly set into play that they've developed an entire living Cosmos, right up to the nearly miraculous vessels which we call our brains and bodies.
3). Souls. That the Creator has linked such entities to these vessels such that when the vessels are working healthily and with certain brain-function, input to the soul occurs and we achieve a state which we call "conscious." Then, embedded as we are in the evolving Universe, we are aware of the "time" sequence and therefore the consequence and the responsibilities of what we may do.
4). The Burden of Freedom. The Giver made the Creation with an element of freedom in it so as to avoid making a trivial "Clock" with no true opportunity for choice. Praise GOD for this burden! Because of that I can truly act and choose to love rather than merely be driven to determined pseudo-choice, and thereby meaninglessness. In fact, this entire creation and evolution is directed towards this one grand goal: a Universe wherein persons can choose Love whether God demands it or not. Likewise they can choose self-interest. ... and their lives, their choices, are meaningful.
5). The constant presence of the Spirit "pressing on the Windows of our Souls" to give subtle wisdom, guidance, grace to choose the good. Thus every truly intelligent soulful creature Universe-wide has opportunity to find the good path, whether that entity "believes in God" or not. Catholicism? In my mind it is only special in that it should make these choices more aware and conscious --- but not easier. To those whom more is given, more is expected. However, the fact of Jesus' Caring Wisdom not only gives us those extra conscious burdens, but along with that the possibility of extra conscious joy.

Because the above addresses the Creation and the Giver of the Creation, it of course opens up a near infinity of questions and objections. I'M NOT GOING TO ANSWER THEM.

This Old Man is tired just writing this post alone... despite The Spirit lingering just over my shoulder and pushing my hand towards the keys occasionally [I've found that once in a while I say something much better than myself, so I give credit and thanks for that.]

 

[Whiskeyjack]

You didn't disappoint, OMM. More, please!

 

[NDBoiler]

OMM dropping mad knowledge bombs.

Post of the year.

 

[GoldenDomer]

Go Jesus.

 

[connect the dots]

Against my better judgement............

Firstly I have no wisdom to give. I'm one pretty limited guy just like the rest of you {if there are any who did not realize that they were limited in dealing with these topics, I apologize. A fine self image is priceless.}

My experience with these big questions is that no one Answers them [with a Capital A.] If you study all of philosophy's history, you read the Platos and Aristotles and Aquinases and Humes and Kants and even Nietzches writing feverishly and massively attempting to make headway by logic and "left-brained" intelligence alone. NONE succeed, and they were far better men than I.

But what I take from that entirety of human intellectual history is that we should not only NOT expect to convince anybody who insist on looking at these questions from a purely analytical [or even "evidential"] position, but we should remain humble ourselves. "I believe this, BUT I can't 'prove' it with linear intellectual language, SO I might be wrong about something."

Well, what good then is "philosophical argument" at all? In a profound truth-establishing sense, not good at all. BUT IT HAS ANOTHER REAL VALUE WHICH IS RARELY EVEN NOTICED, especially when people are debating rather than discussing or even getting emotional. What thinkers like Aristotle or Aquinas or Descartes or GK Chesterton can do, when they are at their best, is demonstrate that it is not insane nor foolish to think about things a certain way. They can't prove anything to the doubter demanding ironclad logic, but they can indicate to the sincerely questing mind that their point of view is not trivially conceived, nor, if honest, obviously false.

I gave up on the narrow left-brain-only approach to the big questions many years ago. What emerged for me [buoyed by the awareness that people like Aquinas had shown that their efforts were not those of madmen] was an awareness that I had a choice. I could decide to go full-out reductionist and concentrate only on the physical Universe and the wonders of Science, or I could intuit that there was profoundly more to it. Either "this is all there is" or "there is more; a spiritual aspect of reality" are equally unprovable analytically. ... and a true scientific scholar, who understands the "method", will admit that.

The choice then for me was to see myself living in a physical universe only, which reduced in the end to a cosmic meaninglessness, or go with an alternative model of existence which was founded upon meaning, both at my personal level and the sense of the entire creation. I choose the latter. Am I a fool? Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Chesterton et al say no. I to some degree then throw my "hat" in their ring.

Once living in that meaningful design, my life, my every non-trivial choice becomes filled with meaning and purpose and [if I do well as to right-living] joy. Joy, it is true, would still happen in the reductionist model, but it would be a deterministic "chemical" joy which, if analyzed philosophically would cast it back into fleeting triviality in the ultimate.

Others are of course welcome to their contrary views --- as long as their chemically-defined determined actions "luckily" turn out to be "nice." I'm going my way and trying very hard to use my free will soulful observations and understanding of sequences and therefore consequences and therefore responsibilities to make choices for love rather than blunt self-interest. I hope to use my spiritual freedom to be meaningfully "nice."

There are only five big things that I and we have been gifted for which we should thank the Giver every day:

1). Existence. That there is anything at all.
2). Evolution. That the Great Words which were embedded in the Original Event [we scientists call them "The Laws of Nature"] have been so brilliantly set into play that they've developed an entire living Cosmos, right up to the nearly miraculous vessels which we call our brains and bodies.
3). Souls. That the Creator has linked such entities to these vessels such that when the vessels are working healthily and with certain brain-function, input to the soul occurs and we achieve a state which we call "conscious." Then, embedded as we are in the evolving Universe, we are aware of the "time" sequence and therefore the consequence and the responsibilities of what we may do.
4). The Burden of Freedom. The Giver made the Creation with an element of freedom in it so as to avoid making a trivial "Clock" with no true opportunity for choice. Praise GOD for this burden! Because of that I can truly act and choose to love rather than merely be driven to determined pseudo-choice, and thereby meaninglessness. In fact, this entire creation and evolution is directed towards this one grand goal: a Universe wherein persons can choose Love whether God demands it or not. Likewise they can choose self-interest. ... and their lives, their choices, are meaningful.
5). The constant presence of the Spirit "pressing on the Windows of our Souls" to give subtle wisdom, guidance, grace to choose the good. Thus every truly intelligent soulful creature Universe-wide has opportunity to find the good path, whether that entity "believes in God" or not. Catholicism? In my mind it is only special in that it should make these choices more aware and conscious --- but not easier. To those whom more is given, more is expected. However, the fact of Jesus' Caring Wisdom not only gives us those extra conscious burdens, but along with that the possibility of extra conscious joy.

Because the above addresses the Creation and the Giver of the Creation, it of course opens up a near infinity of questions and objections. I'M NOT GOING TO ANSWER THEM.

This Old Man is tired just writing this post alone... despite The Spirit lingering just over my shoulder and pushing my hand towards the keys occasionally [I've found that once in a while I say something much better than myself, so I give credit and thanks for that.]

Your deliberate reflections on the spiritual predicaments we have to face are the thoughts of someone who has spent entirely too much time in a religious order of the Catholic church. On with the motley! I distinctly remember, on fall afternoons, the Sisters of Providence listening to Notre Dame football. For them, it was an earthly delight!

 

[bobbyok1]

The way we are headed... Atheists get Earth and Believers get heaven.

Everyone should be happy but they aren't.

Fuckin humans

Actually if believers in Jesus have in fact placed their faith in the God-man then they will get both heaven and earth as the two will become one once Christ comes back and they will enjoy the best of both worlds without end . . . Just sayin'.

 

[JughedJones]

As a vocational pastor I have been digging into three questions as of late and wanted to present them to interested IE members for mutual growth. I must admit I come to this discussion with preconceived notions of the correct answers to these questions, but I do feel as though I have much more room to grow in my understanding. The questions were stirred in me as I engaged a DVD series called "True U" by Focus on the Family (a conservative evangelical para church organization). I would love to hear your ideas, feedback and dialogue about the three. Humor is welcome, but please no abusing one another through hateful, degrading or belittling speech. Thanks!

Question #1- Is there a God? (A question of origin)

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

(Since these are each huge questions that do not have simple answers feel free to tackle one at a time).

1: I don't think so.

2: It's an incredibly important document. Reliable? No.

3: Real? Almost definitely, he was the winner of a reality show of 'messiahs.'


EDIT: I'd like to say that most of the answers I've seen to the questions you asked only go to solidify my love of Catholics.
From what I've known, they're always the most self-aware and intellectual of all the Christian sects. It's a lot of the reason I love Notre Dame so much.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Against my better judgement............

Firstly I have no wisdom to give. I'm one pretty limited guy just like the rest of you {if there are any who did not realize that they were limited in dealing with these topics, I apologize. A fine self image is priceless.}

My experience with these big questions is that no one Answers them [with a Capital A.] If you study all of philosophy's history, you read the Platos and Aristotles and Aquinases and Humes and Kants and even Nietzches writing feverishly and massively attempting to make headway by logic and "left-brained" intelligence alone. NONE succeed, and they were far better men than I.

But what I take from that entirety of human intellectual history is that we should not only NOT expect to convince anybody who insist on looking at these questions from a purely analytical [or even "evidential"] position, but we should remain humble ourselves. "I believe this, BUT I can't 'prove' it with linear intellectual language, SO I might be wrong about something."

Well, what good then is "philosophical argument" at all? In a profound truth-establishing sense, not good at all. BUT IT HAS ANOTHER REAL VALUE WHICH IS RARELY EVEN NOTICED, especially when people are debating rather than discussing or even getting emotional. What thinkers like Aristotle or Aquinas or Descartes or GK Chesterton can do, when they are at their best, is demonstrate that it is not insane nor foolish to think about things a certain way. They can't prove anything to the doubter demanding ironclad logic, but they can indicate to the sincerely questing mind that their point of view is not trivially conceived, nor, if honest, obviously false.

I gave up on the narrow left-brain-only approach to the big questions many years ago. What emerged for me [buoyed by the awareness that people like Aquinas had shown that their efforts were not those of madmen] was an awareness that I had a choice. I could decide to go full-out reductionist and concentrate only on the physical Universe and the wonders of Science, or I could intuit that there was profoundly more to it. Either "this is all there is" or "there is more; a spiritual aspect of reality" are equally unprovable analytically. ... and a true scientific scholar, who understands the "method", will admit that.

The choice then for me was to see myself living in a physical universe only, which reduced in the end to a cosmic meaninglessness, or go with an alternative model of existence which was founded upon meaning, both at my personal level and the sense of the entire creation. I choose the latter. Am I a fool? Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Chesterton et al say no. I to some degree then throw my "hat" in their ring.

Once living in that meaningful design, my life, my every non-trivial choice becomes filled with meaning and purpose and [if I do well as to right-living] joy. Joy, it is true, would still happen in the reductionist model, but it would be a deterministic "chemical" joy which, if analyzed philosophically would cast it back into fleeting triviality in the ultimate.

Others are of course welcome to their contrary views --- as long as their chemically-defined determined actions "luckily" turn out to be "nice." I'm going my way and trying very hard to use my free will soulful observations and understanding of sequences and therefore consequences and therefore responsibilities to make choices for love rather than blunt self-interest. I hope to use my spiritual freedom to be meaningfully "nice."

There are only five big things that I and we have been gifted for which we should thank the Giver every day:

1). Existence. That there is anything at all.
2). Evolution. That the Great Words which were embedded in the Original Event [we scientists call them "The Laws of Nature"] have been so brilliantly set into play that they've developed an entire living Cosmos, right up to the nearly miraculous vessels which we call our brains and bodies.
3). Souls. That the Creator has linked such entities to these vessels such that when the vessels are working healthily and with certain brain-function, input to the soul occurs and we achieve a state which we call "conscious." Then, embedded as we are in the evolving Universe, we are aware of the "time" sequence and therefore the consequence and the responsibilities of what we may do.
4). The Burden of Freedom. The Giver made the Creation with an element of freedom in it so as to avoid making a trivial "Clock" with no true opportunity for choice. Praise GOD for this burden! Because of that I can truly act and choose to love rather than merely be driven to determined pseudo-choice, and thereby meaninglessness. In fact, this entire creation and evolution is directed towards this one grand goal: a Universe wherein persons can choose Love whether God demands it or not. Likewise they can choose self-interest. ... and their lives, their choices, are meaningful.
5). The constant presence of the Spirit "pressing on the Windows of our Souls" to give subtle wisdom, guidance, grace to choose the good. Thus every truly intelligent soulful creature Universe-wide has opportunity to find the good path, whether that entity "believes in God" or not. Catholicism? In my mind it is only special in that it should make these choices more aware and conscious --- but not easier. To those whom more is given, more is expected. However, the fact of Jesus' Caring Wisdom not only gives us those extra conscious burdens, but along with that the possibility of extra conscious joy.

Because the above addresses the Creation and the Giver of the Creation, it of course opens up a near infinity of questions and objections. I'M NOT GOING TO ANSWER THEM.

This Old Man is tired just writing this post alone... despite The Spirit lingering just over my shoulder and pushing my hand towards the keys occasionally [I've found that once in a while I say something much better than myself, so I give credit and thanks for that.]

So. Much. Win.


Great post OMM and thanks for your efforts in this exhausting debate.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

1. Do we have original accounts from them? How do you throw away something that you don't have?



2. Please elaborate, I'm sincerely interested. I've been an atheist for far longer than I've been a reader of Ehrman, so please inform of me of why he's wrong.



3. I feel like you're putting words in my mouth here, or rather, thoughts in my brain. I don't need to reimagine Jesus. Jesus has almost nothing to do with why I reject Christianity and religion.



4. And so I, respectfully, think what you and Whiskey believe is nonsense. But honestly it's not worth discussing further.



5. I'm not asking you to do anything. But if nearly all of the accounts in which Jesus affirms that he is God are from the last Gospel, that, at a minimum, is pretty suspicious. That seems pretty important to not mention clearly and at great length in any of the other gospels, no? So is Ehrman making that up?



6. I've googled lightly for counter-arguments, to be fair. Point me in the right direction.

7. I don't think your view of Jesus lines up with history, because Jesus isn't god. I don't need Ehrman to see that.

1. When I say disciples, I'm not speaking in the common form of the 12 who were followers of Christ. Disciples are those originally around Christ and those who chose to follow the teachings from Christ's disciples. If I were speaking about the original 12, I'd reference them as apostles. So yes, in fact, we do have extant writings from many of the earliest disciples of Christ.

2. I'm not smart enough to cover all topics on why Ehrman is wrong in a forum post. If you do enough googling, I'm sure you'll find plenty of good defenses of how his arguments are refuted.

3. This falls on me. I often imagine people wrestling with things as I would and that's not fair. I've gone through various times in my life as an atheist and I believe OMM's post is the most lucid explanation that I could hope to give for how I arrived back in this camp.

4. I think you understand that when you call someone's views nonsense, then say it's best to not continue the discussion, it isn't exactly ending on good terms.

5. I'll do a little digging and post replies from Ehrman's best critics but in regards to only one gospel clearly discussing Christ's Godhood, it wouldn't have any more effect on me than you telling me the trinity is never explicitly expressed in the Bible. The Church's early fathers have mulled over these issues and gone to great lengths to have a cohesive argument against modern self-falation. Res ipsa loquitur

6. As promised, links will be posted but we are on vacation and I'm sitting in a hotel room while my nephews are swimming at the pool (A happy wife, that does not make).

7. Who and what do you need to see that? I know it's easy when people grow up believing one thing, and then have their "awakening" upon hearing counter arguments and switch sides with firm allegiance to their new found faith, in this discussion, the faith in nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

I quite simply believe there must be a primal mover. I've heard some scientists posit that this pre-requisite isn't needed but it's speaking beyond one's scope. Everything, everything, everything in this world has a cause and effect since the Big Bang (or before? Perhaps the Bigger Bang that led to all the tiny Big Bangs in each universes of our posited multi-verse). So what science allows us to do is conceptualize the forces around us in a framework that allows us to move things to our desires.

It simply can not devise a framework for which to explain how something comes from nothing. This is a simplified argument but I believe it gets at the root of the discussion. I was a biochemistry major in college, I appreciate science. I appreciate evolution and physics and kinetics and entropy and everything else we are able to do (for good) with what science has provided but it doesn't speak to an ultimate beginning.

Why are we much smarter than we evolutionarily need to be? We are logarithmic scales higher in intellect than we need to be to still hold dominion over this planet. I haven't ever sought out research papers that attempt to explain the sizable gap so perhaps science has put something forth on this but I rarely here anyone question it.

Those are disjointed thoughts from today.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

The one thing that is factual and left out of this account is the span of time involved, and the methods of communication possible. Two really important facts are unappreciated in this conversation :

In the first dimension - There are literally thousands of copies of each of the works that are included in the New Testament. Different Christian versions of the New Testament even have a different number of works included.

The earliest copies of what we have were written not even as close to Jesus' life as we are this morning to the American Revolution. Think about that. When I was a child in elementary school, Sister Mary Francine started a message at the desk of the student in the front left of the classroom. By the time it went up and down the rows, "How now brown cow," ended up being, "So, and so's uncle has a cow that gives chocolate milk!"

This leaves us with two opposing forces in most religious topical conversations. This is the inspired word of God, or this is fallible history. I am a great believer in dialectic thinking, and have found paradoxes everywhere. Fiction, even if this is so flawed of a report that it is not history, often is truer to life that the history we are taught. We are all aware of the other side of this template, "Truth is stranger than fiction." Well, I assert that fiction can be more truthful that some of what we accept as reported history.

How does this affect what we believe? We have the first, second, third, fourth, fifth century followers, and promoters ideas, thoughts, feeling, and promotions mixed in with the original peoples from the time of Christ, the original ones who experience the events. I think there is an argument that in addition to Constantine, Charlemagne also used and altered the official implementation of Christian services, organization, and teachings for their own political gain. Let alone centuries of Popes who struggled to maintain their hold on the kingdoms and feudal systems under their control. Much of the beauty and wisdom of the original teachings and history was lost as a result; for example, one of my personal sorrows is that the Magdalene was lost due to a misogynistic bishop who destroyed her reputation and portrayed her as a "tainted woman" for political gain, as well as his hatred of women.

So, I find Mikes post emotionally so moving that I cannot even comment on it directly. It is beautiful, brilliant, thoughtful, and loving. I cannot remember the last time I was so moved by a "simple posting." Some of what I saw in it was that the answers aren't as important as keeping the right questions, and exercising them regularly. And details aren't as important as how you hold your heart. (Your love for others, yourself, and your deity.) Mike's approach to the "Holy Spirit" is key to me. It is both humble and real. At least to my experience. Because, in my opinion, while searching for humility, those that promoted Jesus to God, and "His Way" to "The Way", either or both which may be true or not, these people ignored that which was most apparent in the earliest versions of his teachings. That which is divine is in each of us.

This revolutionary thought (still revolutionary today) was intolerable to the political forces which were in charge of the propagation of the word of the faith. And they are still at odds with the majority of businesses today, including the huge business of religion. But Mike understands. He can be God inspired by the divinity, but somewhat incapacitated by the non-divine aspect of ourselves here. I rejoice at hearing his voice. It makes me feel not so alone.

So divinity can be expressed through man. But what I like best about all Mike said, is that it doesn't rely on a "supernatural origin." The non-logic of an animistic, superstitions peoples has given away to the true message here.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the whole Christian experience were an exercise to deliver our species actualization from the deep unconscious to a working conscious, organic system of being? Like a super-human being?

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

Actually if believers in Jesus have in fact placed their faith in the God-man then they will get both heaven and earth as the two will become one once Christ comes back and they will enjoy the best of both worlds without end . . . Just sayin'.

Now you believers just look greedy to me lol

 

[Old Man Mike]

I get the lightheartedness of Jebediah's last posting.

Since I have a terrible problem of [personally] falling back into seriousness on topics such as this, I'd like to express something which I think is completely honest on my part, but never seems to get across in any discussion:

When one begins to live with awareness of the magnificence of the Creation, and the awe-inspiring gifts that one has received, there seems to grow a "personal" relationship with The Giver. That relationship is as much like a fully honest type of Love as it can be [for something having no "physical" smack-on-the-lips reinforcement.]

The relevance to the above remarks is that once you come to actually love GOD, "it"/living isn't about what you "get" any more. You do things not out of fear or reward, but simply because you love what is and the Being who gifted it to all of us.

Love is, by reality and therefore definition, not about "me." Love is about The Loved.

Every morning during morning prayers, I feebly fall a little bit more in love with the Creator. It doesn't make me a saint. My animal still is "alive and well", and regularly misbehaving, but it's more like an undisciplined puppy now than a violent wolf.

God, thankfully, smiles at puppies.

 

[bobbyok1]

Now you believers just look greedy to me lol

Hahaha. Glad you could see the lighthearted nature of my jab.

 

[bobbyok1]

I get the lightheartedness of Jebediah's last posting.

Since I have a terrible problem of [personally] falling back into seriousness on topics such as this, I'd like to express something which I think is completely honest on my part, but never seems to get across in any discussion:

When one begins to live with awareness of the magnificence of the Creation, and the awe-inspiring gifts that one has received, there seems to grow a "personal" relationship with The Giver. That relationship is as much like a fully honest type of Love as it can be [for something having no "physical" smack-on-the-lips reinforcement.]

The relevance to the above remarks is that once you come to actually love GOD, "it"/living isn't about what you "get" any more. You do things not out of fear or reward, but simply because you love what is and the Being who gifted it to all of us.

Love is, by reality and therefore definition, not about "me." Love is about The Loved.

Every morning during morning prayers, I feebly fall a little bit more in love with the Creator. It doesn't make me a saint. My animal still is "alive and well", and regularly misbehaving, but it's more like an undisciplined puppy now than a violent wolf.

God, thankfully, smiles at puppies.

OMM. I think I am understanding where you are coming from in the above post. I want to add my own thoughts about this discussion of philosophy/theology/religions/worldviews and the like. The reason I began this post was out of curiosity what others have come to know about God and this life. I understand many are in a position of not believing in any such Being. My intent was not to prove anyone wrong, but to begin a discussion of willing IE members on such matters. But if I could share a moment of transparency I would say I am convinced I have come to know the Being who made it all. 38 now, I am 17 years into my conviction that God personally asked me to submit my life to him. I did it much out of fear of Hell but also out of a sense of it being the right thing to do. The day I said yes to that conviction I was wildly surprised by the amount of joy and acceptance I felt I was receiving from the Father himself. I fully expected my new life as a Christ follower to be miserable, boring and downright lacking of true happiness. But from that day forward I have had a ever growing understanding that God is good. He is just. He actually cares about me and everyone else. I believe he is exactly like Jesus (based on Jesus' teachings). Some days I still view him as someone who is looking for a chance to send me to Hell. Then he reminds me through the Holy Spirit that he in fact is on my side, that he is for me. I guess I could sum it up by saying I love knowing him just for who he is. I enjoy bringing him pleasure, just as he does for me. I simply love him for who he is. I understand some may see it as crazy, delusional, being sincerely wrong or some other explanation. But I am convinced that I was created by Jesus Christ for his purposes and his purposes are so good. And I believe the same is true of everyone of us. Thanks for reading.

 

[no.1IrishFan]

"Along with most Christians, you believe that mortals like ourselves cannot reject the morality of the Bible. We cannot say, for intstance, that God was wrong to drown most of humanity in the flood of Genesis, because this is merely the way it seems from our limited point of view. And yet, you feel like you are in a position to judge that Jesus is the son of God, that the golden rule is the height of moral wisdom and that the Bible isn't brimming with lies.
You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible.

And then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely on our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world.
Rather, we must depend upon the prescriptions of the Bible.

You are using your own moral intuitions to decide that the Bible is the appropriate guarantor of your moral intuitions. Your own intuitions are still primary, and your reasoning is circular."
-Sam Harris

 

[Bogtrotter07]

"Along with most Christians, you believe that mortals like ourselves cannot reject the morality of the Bible. We cannot say, for intstance, that God was wrong to drown most of humanity in the flood of Genesis, because this is merely the way it seems from our limited point of view. And yet, you feel like you are in a position to judge that Jesus is the son of God, that the golden rule is the height of moral wisdom and that the Bible isn't brimming with lies.
You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible.

And then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely on our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world.
Rather, we must depend upon the prescriptions of the Bible.

You are using your own moral intuitions to decide that the Bible is the appropriate guarantor of your moral intuitions. Your own intuitions are still primary, and your reasoning is circular."
-Sam Harris

Pretty darned brilliant. Suffering is a weakness that exposes those who use the message of Christ for power and wealth.

But there is another cut, pure, and more personal. Unaffected by the politicians, and merchants.

Great men through the ages have seen it. From Thomas Jefferson, to our Old Man Mike. The love is undeniable, it is life extending and healing. It is transcendent.