hehe, the irony of it all is that it is likely that you ARE following man's morality because in all likelihood god is a man-made construct, and therefore "his" ethics too can be nothing more than of man's creation. i must confess i find the irony of this very amusing. LOL! you go on to say... "Man-made morality is a sham, a fake, a cardboard cutout of the real thing, an unenforceable joke. A life of self deception for convenience is a piss poor substitute for accepting the truth, that we don't have to bend and twist reality if we can swallow our pride long enough to accept the authority of a higher power. Reality weighs against your position, and your contortions- i.e. your need to resort to a make believe morality to justify your actions- further convicts you." man's morality is a sham, a fake, an unenforceable joke you say?!! how much worse can man's morality be than YOUR ALL POWERFUL GOD WHO PERMITS THE ATROCITIES & PAIN & SUFFERING TO EXIST IN THE WORLD WHEN HE COULD EASILY STOP OR PREVENT IT! WHAT KIND OF A GOD IS YOUR GOD THAT PERMITS BABIES & THE INNOCENT TO DIE & SUFFER NEEDLESSLY FROM DISEASE!! WHAT KIND OF GOD PERMITS & EVEN ENCOURAGES THE SLAUGHTERING OF COUNTLESS HUMANS IN *HIS* NAME OVER THE PAST MANY CENTURIES!! TO ME THIS IS THE TRUE TWISTED MORALITY! WHO'S THE SHAM HERE, THE FAKE, THE UNENFORCEABLE JOKE??!! NOT MAN! sorry partner, but i'll take man's considered morality over your "benevolent" god's morality any day of the week!!! :-/ ps dark the rest of your post is a mass of obscure and circular argument and assumptions. you just can't throw assertions out there without support and hope they stick. don't work that way.
It is mildly amusing reading over this thread, but at the same time very sad The part simply cannot posess the whole... The greatest truth you will ever know is that you will never know... PEACE Commisso
commisso, yes that is what he is saying. once you have renounced reason and assumed the big lie, further leaps of irrationallity becomes easier. :-/
Faster, I say this with the utmost respect to you, but your post insults even the limitations of our finite minds, whereby, you fail to go deeper with your thinking. Even Aristotle concluded that there had to be a Prime Mover.
Reading,from the first post to the last above, I was struck by the pick up in fervour as the discussion moved from "age and trading" to the discussion of "God, The Universe, and Everything." Perhaps this is an indication that deep down, once man has satisfied his need for food and shelter, he starts to look for, or examine, the "spiritual" side of his nature. Includung the search for a "meaning" to life. As life becomes more complicated, people (In their quieter moments) increasingly question what they do, why they do it. And with regard to "Life," often ask, "Is this it ?" This is nothing new as you all well know, but it was interesting to note the rapidly increasing number of posts as the discussion changed as indicated in the first para. above. May your God go with you. Toby
stockerup, do my eyes deceive me? are you really invoking aristotle's "prime mover" as proof of gods existence? and you say that it is *I* who fails to think deeper? with all due respect ....LOL! :-/
Faster: May I calmly suggest that I am the one backing up my arguments with rational reasoning where as you are the one repeating arguments, using circular reasoning etc. I have repeated again and again that the heart of my faith is based on logic and reason through a coherent study of all the elements: philosophy, science, observed reality, human experience, even mathematics all point to me towards God's existence. You accuse me of rambling and sophistry. I've debated my position with philosophy professors at Oxford, I think that if anyone could shoot down a babbling fool it would be them. You also just lobbed me a nice fat softball pitch down the middle with your paragraph in all caps. Your essential question, "If there is a good God then how can he allow evil and suffering," is further argument for God's existence. Even you, faster, recognize with utter certainty that there is evil and suffering in this world. You atheists can say when pressed into a corner that evil/bad does not exist, but in your heart of hearts you know that it does. But how do you know evil exists? Who put that understanding there? Who defines what good and evil is? You? No. How is it that every human being who has ever lived has had an innate sense of the difference between good and evil, regardless of which path they ultimately followed? And here is my all-caps question: HOW CAN YOU DENY THE TESTIMONY OF YOUR OWN HEART AND MIND WHEN IT IS LITERALLY SHOUTING AT YOU? Listen to me carefully now Faster: we are dealing in logic here, not sophistry. We are making conclusions about reality based on the way things really are. I have made this point multiple times now, but because it does not seem to be sinking in I will make it again, in all caps for your benefit since you seem to like them: WITHOUT GOD, THERE IS NO STANDARD OF GOOD AND EVIL. IF MAN IS THE ONLY MEASURE, THEN HE IS THE BYPRODUCT OF AN ACCIDENT AND THE ONLY MORALITY IS WHAT EACH MAN "CHOOSES" TO BE. IF THIS IS THE CASE, THEN MOTHER THERESA IS NO MORE "GOOD" THAN ADOLPH HITLER. IF YOUR WORLD OF MAN DETERMINED VALUES IS ALL THERE IS, THEN GOOD/BAD IS A HUMAN CONSTRUCT AND THERE IS NO TRUE GOOD/BAD, ONLY THE OPINIONS OF ONE GROUP VERSUS THE OTHER. THIS IS A FALSE REALITY THAT NOT ONLY CONTRADICTS THE NATURAL UNDERSTANDING THAT EVERY HUMAN CARRIES WITHIN THEM INNATELY, IT ALSO CONTRADICTS EVERY ATHEIST OR 'HUMANIST' WHO DARES TO MAKE ANY APPEAL TO RIGHT OR WRONG, EVER. THE ONLY CONSISTENT ATHEISTS ARE THE ONES WHO STAKE THEIR CLAIM IN PURE, UNADULTERATED NIHILISM, CONCEPTUAL RELATIVISM, AND MEANINGLESS CHAOS. THE MOMENT YOU STEP OFF THAT TERRITORY AS AN ATHEIST, YOU ARE CONTRADICTING YOURSELF. You can slander me and call me a fool in different ways, but I dare say your position would be better defended if you could present a counterargument that holds instead of re-repeating one that doesn't work repeatedly. p.s. "in all likelihood God is a man made construct" I love statements that hang out here with no backing whatsoever. "In all likelihood Elvis details my Cadillac" has equal validity with that statement of yours because both statements are equally pointless, uninformed and totally unsupported.
By good/bad I am not referring to what feels good and bad but rather in the moral sense of the phrase, i.e. good vs evil / right vs wrong if man is the ultimate standard of morality, then in reality there is no standard other than the barrel of a gun.
surely a learned man such as yourself knows that the BURDEN OF PROOF lies with YOU, not me. (or didn't they teach that at oxford). YOU are the one affirming the existence of something, and it is you who must make the compelling case. If I assert there are unicorns in my closet, the burden then lies with me to provide the compelling and persuasive argument for unicorns, not on you to disprove it. so, where is dark's compelling evidence for god? other than a "coherent study of all the elements" and debates with oxford professors whom could not reduce him to a "babbling fool" (so he says), he seems to hang his hat on one thing ....the existence of ethics & morality. Ok, let's examine this a little further than the shouting "testimony of your heart and mind." your sense of morality comes from your god. then it follows that he is the source, the creator and the final arbiter of all that is good/bad. something is "good" or "bad" simply because he says it is. also, since there is no way of predicting what this god might desire next, it is entirely meaningless to assert that "god is good." killing infants with rocks would be just as likely to be as "good" as the principle 'love thy neighbor." do you recall the god of the old testament, his "goodness" is of this nature. so it seems you are quite willing to place complete blind faith in the moral caprices of your god. (by the way, you haven't said which particular god(s) you subscribe to. you have thousands to choose from, in fact choose any two, we are having a two for one sale today ;-) i am not so confident in your fickle god. btw, moral behaviour can have its basis in neurophysiology and natural selection. there is no longer a need to appeal to metaphysical sources. perhaps you missed these studies? :-/