The Theism/Atheism Discussion

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by jonathan7

I may have made a mistake when typing it up/missing the text from the book.

Dunno. I haven't seen the quote before.

Originally Posted by jonathan7

<snip pics>

I know who the people are. I don't know what analogy you're referencing though (post #450)

Originally Posted by jonathan7

Seeing as my world view is considered unreasonable; lets have a review of it;

<snip>

Still unreasonable?

I think we're dangerously close to equivocating here.

Big difference between behaviors and motivations. You seem to be addressing the former, while I was hoping to discuss the latter.

Originally Posted by jonathan7

I'm not interested in 'winning' this argument, or you tellimg anyone that I've won, however I hope you understand as a friend I would like you to convert; and I think you have a good enough understanding of Christianity to understand why I think that.

You brought up losing so I tried to make light of it.

Originally Posted by jonathan7

The world is a horrible place in the main because people are selfish and horrible to one another, do you disagree?

In order to answer your question, I think I'd need to share the belief that the world is a horrible place.

Regardless, I'm not sure how that's related to what we were discussing.

Originally Posted by jonathan7

I shall leave that for now...

Take Care

You too, my friend.

[ET Warrior]

Originally Posted by jonathan7

Tell me GD, you dared any drug dealers to shoot you recently? *story*

Honestly...I can't figure out how this relates at all to how religion is/is not a crutch...it speaks volumes to your character as a person, but seems to have nothing to do with religion at all...

[jonathan7]

Achilles my friend - sorry for the flying post - been quite busy (or at least, I havent had enough free time; to spend the couple of hours of intensity needed to answer all our previous posts, I hope you know what I mean, I'm hoping to have enough time tomorrow to give it the attention it deserves )

Originally Posted by ET Warrior

Honestly...I can't figure out how this relates at all to how religion is/is not a crutch...it speaks volumes to your character as a person, but seems to have nothing to do with religion at all...

Because honestly my religious belief makes my life a hell of alot more difficult. I quit university to look after my friends who are shall we say rather heavily into illicit drugs and suffice to say there are some rather dark reasons behind that. Why did I quit uni? Because my question was - if Jesus was me, what would he do? The same is applied to my reaction to the drug dealer.

Or another example:

In my first year of university I was head hunted by Mercedes for a rather well paid job (I would have been on alot more than what any of my friends who have graduated are on) - why did I not take it? Because I didn't think it would improove the world; it would however have made my life again easier.

Why did I not take it? Again I don't think that is something Jesus would have done. Now I'm not too fussed about many things people may say, but I know my life is a damn site harder because of what I believe, so I do not take particuarly kindly to being told the opposite.

If my responce was not pertinant to the thread, perhaps the posts that I responded to with regards that is 'at fault' and not me responding to it.

[ET Warrior]

I wasn't saying your response wasn't pertinent to the thread, more that it wasn't relevant in the context of the question.

All of your examples again speak to your character as a person, but seem very irrelevant to religion. I very much doubt your decisions would differ much whether you were or were not a believer and follower of Christianity. An absence of Jesus does not mean an absence of moral compass, and you would very probably still have the same idea of right and wrong.

[Darth InSidious]

So...you are arguing that a person's nature affects there actions and modes of thought, but not the other way around? A bad person does bad things because they are bad?

How pre-Aristotelian.

[ET Warrior]

I am arguing that if jonathan7 were to stop being a Christian he would still very likely make the same life decisions. (except for the going to church and praying decisions...those would probably change)

[Darth InSidious]

So you are saying that morality is inherent, and not influenced by modes of thought or actions?

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by Darth InSidious

So you are saying that morality is inherent, and not influenced by modes of thought or actions?

There is quite bit of research that argues that morality is inherent. V.A. Ramachandran's work with mirror neurons is one such line of research (link)

[Darth InSidious]

It's an interesting argument - and I admit I haven't read all the documents presented by any chalk - although if I have time, I shall endeavour to get through as much as I can. I have a few doubts, 'though.

First, I would guess that most of these tests were performed on sane adults, which would mean that societal/cultural moral values would already be present in the person's consciousness. Based on this, I would express some doubt as to the utility of this evidence in inferring that morality is inherent.

Second, the existence of societies and cultures with radically different moral systems and conceptions of what is right to our own throws some doubt, for me, on this explanation. The Spartan Krupteia, the South American civilisations that existed before its discovery by Columbus, the human sacrifice present in First Dynasty Egypt would all seem to suggest that while a conception of morality is inherent, our conception of morality may not be.

In any case, perhaps I was unclear. By "inherent", what I meant was that our actions are predetermined by our nature, and that our nature is not affected by our actions. Apologies for the lack of clarity there.

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by Darth InSidious

First, I would guess that most of these tests were performed on sane adults, which would mean that societal/cultural moral values would already be present in the person's consciousness. Based on this, I would express some doubt as to the utility of this evidence in inferring that morality is inherent.

I would speculate that this is not the case though. Normally discoveries such as these tend to come from studying abnormal brains rather than "normal" ones. Certainly a strong understanding of how "normal" brain functions is necessary as a control, but that's about it.

For instance, if I know that a normal brain has X level of mirror neurons present but the brain of sample A only has Y level, then, all other things being equal, I might be able to argue for a causal relationship ("Behavior as exhibited by sample A can be directly linked to irregularities with mirror neurons", etc).

Originally Posted by Darth InSidious

Second, the existence of societies and cultures with radically different moral systems and conceptions of what is right to our own throws some doubt, for me, on this explanation. The Spartan Krupteia, the South American civilisations that existed before its discovery by Columbus, the human sacrifice present in First Dynasty Egypt would all seem to suggest that while a conception of morality is inherent, our conception of morality may not be.

Without having discussed it at length, I would venture to guess that this could probably be explained by in-group biases (in the case of human sacrifices of slaves, lower caste members, prisoners of war, etc). For instances where we're talking about sacrificing members of one's own tribe, family, group, etc, then I think then we're discussing the power of superstition, peer pressure, etc in ancient cultures. Not that it isn't up for discussion, only that there are plausible explanations available.

Originally Posted by Darth InSidious

In any case, perhaps I was unclear. By "inherent", what I meant was that our actions are predetermined by our nature, and that our nature is not affected by our actions. Apologies for the lack of clarity there.

We may or may not be missing each other by much here. I think that we'd need to operationally define what we mean by "our nature" and that would probably take up a thread of its own

[Arcesious]

well, as being Agnostic now, I've been researching more and more from both sides and attempting to give them equal grounds in my mind... However, as a response to the moral arguments against the Christian God, I have a reponse against the beleif of the Christian God being 'moral' now...

First off, If I've interpretted this correctly, I've been suprised to find teaching of racial superiority in Ezra and Nehemiah 7-13... Basically, as I've interpretted it, the Jews were intermarrying with other races. People like Ezra got really mad at them, and told them that it was a very wicked thing to be 'mixing with impure races'... What would be so horrible about marrying soemone from another race/nationality? I don't neccessarily think that Jews marrying with other races would lead all of them to worship idols and 'false gods'... Also, in the Bible, 'God' doesn't seem to adhere to 'freedom of religion'. In the old testament, Christianity is pretty much forced on many different cultures, and those who don't beleive it die. At least that's what it seems liek to me. I don't think I'm interpretting this badly with Exegises either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis
In the Bible, 'God' teaches not to force your beleifs on someone, but who is 'God' to say that when 'he' doesn't follow 'his' own rules? Oh, sure, you'll probably try to argue 'But God doesn't need to apply to those rules because he's God'. What kind of an argument would that be? God is described as being a benevelant and tolerate being, however, in the Bible, he literally violates those descriptions of himself. I'm not putting God on trial though- I'm simply trying to expose what I've interpretted as some major contradictions in the Bible.
Also, all the death of other races- what is that supposed to be? Victory of the Jews? I call it the slaughtering and enslavement of other races. Sure, as the story goes, the Jews were slaves in Egypt for a long time, and were punished by God for ignorance, and enslaved by soem other races, but how does that justify them to take away the land of other races, enslave them, and murder them?
From the Christian point of view, I'd describe it as the 'Jews be given what God said they'd get, and defeating the ignorant races'.
But, I'll voyage to ask you too look at it from another point of view- the view of the enemies of the Jews at that time.
You are a soldier, enlisted in an army of another race, who beleives soemthing you've been led to beleive, which is not Christianity. You've seen and heard of the Jews defeating other races and taking their territory, and forcing their beleifs on their prisoners. Some of the people of those races who died were close friends of yours.
You want to avenge their deaths, and defend your country, and to keep your home and family safe and free.
If God is so perfect, why couldn't he have shown those people of those races 'the truth of himself', and taught everyone tolerance and democracy, and how to live interracially mixed together, to altogether live happily? God knows everything, according to you, yes? If he knows everything, he certainly could know how to persuade people who normally won't listen to him to beleive in himself, since we've estabilished that since God knows everything, no one can truly have free will if he exists.
If God knows everything, he could have prevented racism and all those other horrible things at a much earlier time. Why would God tolerate slavery, racism, and polygamy at that time of humanity's history, if he could have very easily prevented it; yet he didn't? Why allow humanity to suffer though all those things when, if you know everything, and can do anything, you can prevent it, presuade all humanity to your way of thinking, and show them what the consequences would be if it happened? Why would you not follow what you teach others? Wouldn't that be within the terms of a strong term called 'hypocrisy'? Honestly, our definition of God is that he is an all-powerful, allknowing, a perfect being. What it seems like to me, at least, is that the Bible has soem stories that go against God's decribed being that create soem contradictiosn and hypocrisy in the Bible (IE, all that I've said in this post, and the Biblical view of Homosexuality), and some stories and principals that are very good. Before you say that some parts of the Bible might not be true, consider this:
If you were God, and were all powerful, why would you allow the teaching of yourself to be corrupted?

[Rev7]

Originally Posted by Arcesious

In the Bible, 'God' teaches not to force your beleifs on someone, but who is 'God' to say that when 'he' doesn't follow 'his' own rules?

Well, perhaps He made them for us to follow, not for himself?

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by Achilles

There is quite bit of research that argues that morality is inherent. V.A. Ramachandran's work with mirror neurons is one such line of research (link)

I came across this book today and thought I would give it a mention for anyone interested:

Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others

Mirror neurons are being touted as a possible source of inherent moral behavior and a potential explanation for illnesses such as autism.

[/off-topic]