scorpius said:
too bad that one is so illogical,only an idiot would fall for it,
why would God need to sacrifice himself to himself to save people from something He made in the first place?
Um.. I think the story goes something like, Man lived in the Garden of Eden until the original sin. Later on, men lived in sin and God's sends his son to give mankind the possibility to earn a way to heaven (real or metaphorical). Sounds pretty logical to me even if very unplausible.
scorpius said:
and who created God?...(people me thinks!)
why cant the Universe be eternaly existing,uncaused and infinite?
sure looks that way..
and we know that matter,energy cannot be created nor destroyed only changed,which would mean universe always existed in some form,shape..
Its not a quesiton of "can or cannot" its concerning that the physics were used to arrive to a definition of God. Logically -from the minds standpoint- every effect can be traced to cause and so forth. Now, if this is held as true, how can an infinity of cause and effect exist? Its rationnaly impossible to explain for you fall in the 'infinite regression' which has been shown to be irrational in itself (talked by Aristotle, Descartes and Leibniz).
Anyways, just read this and you'll understand why the universe is not infinite:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=1&itemid=269
modern science denies an eternal existence to the Universe!
scorpius said:
nonsense,morality comes from people..
with God
you get moral teachings like these
I went to that site and here is what I retain:
On the other hand, if a god's commandments are based on a knowledge of the inherent goodness of an act, we are faced with the realization that there is a standard of goodness independent of the god and we must admit that he cannot be the source of morality. In our quest for the good, we can bypass the god and go to his source!
Given, then, that gods a priori cannot be the source of ethical principles, we must seek such principles in the world in which we have evolved. We must find the sublime in the mundane. What precept might we adopt?
The text erroneously explains as if Plato specifically said this. Its rather a revampted presentation of an arguement use by Plato to speak of what is Holy and what belongs to the gods.
This fault put aside, the site you offered -along with Plato- both presuppose that we can know what is the "standard of goodness". I think that a pretty big presupposition that needs lots of backing up for alot of thinkers would easily tear down any attempt to give out a universal standard for goodness.
The principle of "enlightened self-interest" is an excellent first approximation to an ethical principle which is both consistent with what we know of human nature and is relevant to the problems of life in a complex society. Let us examine this principle.
First we must distinguish between "enlightened" and "unenlightened" self-interest. Let's take an extreme example for illustration. Suppose you lived a totally selfish life of immediate gratification of every desire. Suppose that whenever someone else had something you wanted, you took it for yourself.
It wouldn't be long at all before everyone would be up in arms against you, and you would have to spend all your waking hours fending off reprisals. Depending upon how outrageous your activity had been, you might very well lose your life in an orgy of neighborly revenge. The life of total but unenlightened self-interest might be exciting and pleasant as long as it lasts -but it is not likely to last long (...)
It is obvious that more is to be gained by cooperating with others than by acts of isolated egoism.
I've never heard of "enlightened self-interest" before, but I have read all the above in Hobbes "Leviathan" (not properly quoted again). The problem with such a universal rule -which at the beginning the text announces that it is only an approximate to a universal ethical principle (nice trashing your arguement before even starting it!)- its that it pre supposes two ideas that are completly hypothetical and not founded on verifiable facts:
1- At the beginning of human life, individuals were isolated from each other and fought regularly with each other for survival (Hobbes "state of war")
2-From this state it became "obvious" that cooperation was better than the sate of war.(Hobbes explains the origin of society)
1st critic:
Rousseau addressed this issue by remarking that no one can account for makind while he was "in the state of nature". He depicts the firsts humans who lived by their own as being quite happy: plenty of food to pick from trees, plenty of land to walk around and only rarely see other human beings.
The problem starts when humans begin to live together: jealousy and envy set in and for the first time competition sets in. As Rousseau would argue, the formation of societies have removed man so far from his original state of nature that it is today impossible to trace backwards his true nature. Society has shaped man into something compleatly different than what he used to be: physicaly and psycholgoicaly.
2nd seperate quote of the text:
Because we have the nervous systems of social animals, we are generally happier in the company of our fellow creatures than alone.
2nd critic that applies to all previous quotes:
I think, like Rousseau, that their is nothing "obvious" to the primitive man that living in packs is better than living alone. They are many pros and cons to both styles of life. By stating that it is 'obvious' you are presupposing that the primitive man thinks like we do today. By stating that primitive nervous systems enjoyed as much the company of others than our modern nervous systems, you are again presupposing that both function the same way.
Something very nice in theory, but can never be proven more than its opposite theory.
Prisme
I read yours, now you read mine
To scorpius:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=1&itemid=269
(from another thread)
*glitch*