Is God a just judge?

sculptor said:
theist
atheist
antitheist
areligious
antireligious

so many layers
And it seems that the most vitriolic are those who could best be described as anti-religious.

If one assumes an infinite distance between man and god, then prognostications about god invariable and necessarily are prognostications about man, with the erroneous assumption that they are about god.
If one assumes that there is some entity which could be called "GOD" then being a theist or atheist or antitheist or areligious or antireligious becomes meaningless. As, the choice is not ours to make.

Original sin and/or infinite distance between us and god, has the benefit of making us all equals, and the morality embodied therein becomes a damned good guide for how we should treat each other.
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Exactly why those who have a social conscience will fight the evils of religion.

It is called duty to your fellow man.

Christianity is not big on that and Jesus would tell them that to their faces.

Regards
DL
 
Yazata said:
The problem that I have with threads like this is that I'm not a Christian and I don't base my own thinking about religion from reading the Bible and thinking about the ethics of the stories and situations that it depicts.
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If you have not based your thinking from myths with messages like what the bible has, and all the other stories, anecdotal or not that you have heard and read, then you would be spiritually blind and you are not. You are just wrong in as to where you get your morals.

Of course, with such psychobabble, I am likely wrong.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Our friend forgets that morals are developed to learn to live with those of your own kind. God has no other so he cannot have learned morals.
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Yes. Despite theists trying to rule over people's private lives, morals are for what significantly affects others. A being alone has no need for morals. And 1 being or group cannot set morals that they cannot follow themselves.
 
Yazata said:
That's how we think in the modern individualistic West.

The ancients often had very different ideas, thinking instead in terms of groups and of collective debts and obligations. We can see that reflected in the ancient Hebrews and in some aspects of Islamic law even today.

For example, if a member of clan A kills a member of clan B, clan A owes a debt to clan B. (I believe that Islamic law still treats murder as a tort rather than as a crime.) And in many ancient cultures, if it wasn't possible for clan B to collect on the debt by killing the individual murderer, it was entirely permissable for members of clan B to kill any member of offending clan A for payback.

So the way the ancient Hebrews saw it, when humanity screwed up and fell short of God's desires (symbolized by the Adam and Eve story) that was a failing that applied to the entire human clan, so to speak. The problem wasn't between God and individual humans, it was a problem between God and humanity collectively. So the human clan was imagined as owing some kind of collective debt to God.

And in ancient times debt was typically imagined as proportional to the status of the one who had suffered damages. Unfortunately for us, God is supposed to be so Holy that nothing that humanity can possibly hand over (sacrifice) could possibly pay off humanity's debt to God. Only a divine payment could satisfy that kind of divine debt.

In other words, I suspect that part of the problem that modern people face in getting their minds around ideas like substitutionary sacrifice and original sin is that we think in terms of the guilt and innocence of individuals as opposed to entire groups, and think of moral violations more in terms of crimes than as torts that require payment of civil damages.
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Interesting and far reaching comments.

On Adam and Eve and the Orthodox Jewish view of the fall, I offer this link that shows how they see Eden as man’s elevation and not the fall that Christianity foolishly put to it. Jews do not have an original sin.

http://www.mrrena.com/misc/judaism2.php

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On the divine payment issue. You mean sacrifices, bribes and ransoms to alter good judicial practices.

I offer God as saying he prefers obedience over sacrifice. Seems we can pay our own way.

Regards
DL
 
StrangerInAStrangeLa said:
You can say that again. IF people must fabricate god(s), why don't they make it good, benevolent, loving, intelligent, sane, wise, mature & emotionally stable???
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Governments would kill him. Remember what Rome did. They chose those they could control easily and killed off those that were a cut above.

What you describe is the Gnostic Christian form of worship where God is a Universalist and can do no wrong, because he is represented by a Universalist free-thinking Jesus. Rome had to get rid of the freedom lover and we are stuck with the boot licker.

Social manipulation and control at it's best. Or worse depending on your view.

Regards
DL
 
StrangerInAStrangeLa said:
I've posted much less about religion than you. It is not my fault you cannot handle the truth. You may as well be talking about Mother Goose. Show me a god or stand down.
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That's just the trouble. You refuse to see. All this has been shown to you and those like you time and again in these pages and others. You just roll right over it and refuse to listen. You are just enamored with your own supposed wit and sophistication. You are blinded by the very self-righteousness you say you object to in others. You have no interest in truth is you're just intent on being annoying. Another craver of negative attention. Good bye (which is to say, 'God be with you')
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
That's just the trouble. You refuse to see. All this has been shown to you and those like you time and again in these pages and others. You just roll right over it and refuse to listen. You are just enamored with your own supposed wit and sophistication. You are blinded by the very self-righteousness you say you object to in others. You have no interest in truth is you're just intent on being annoying. Another craver of negative attention. Good bye (which is to say, 'God be with you')
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7 lies. Is that your lucky number? IF there is a god with me, it is a damn sneaky bugger & as long as it stubbornly refuses to show itself, I would consider it a sick sadistic stalker.
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
Your low-brow remarks are obvious trolling.
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Stranger's use of 'ImaginaryFiend' and 'Holybabbles' was obviously intended to convey his own personal contempt for theism and for Christianity in particular.

I'm unsure whether his reason for doing that was simply an attempt to anger those he perceives as 'the other side' (that would be textbook trolling) or because he feels threatened by Christianity and this was a defense mechanism of some kind. I can't imagine how calling a threat names can possibly make somebody more secure, but people often behave as if it does.

If you don't believe in the Christian God that's your call. Why get online in a sub-forum of a science forum that is meant to discuss religion just so you can exhibit your ignorance (by which I mean your coarse, deliberately offensive language and tone)? ...

You've made these same remarks repeatedly in other threads and there is no need to go on about it. You are boring me.
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I don't have any problem with skepticism and with skeptical remarks. I make plenty of them myself. But they need to be interesting. They need to raise issues for further discussion.

Stranger did that in my opinion, when he suggested that any cosmic superbeing that we encounter out there, a being who is clearly, indisputably and incomprehensibly superior to humans in the same way that humans are superior to cockroaches, might not be good or benevolent in our terms at all. It might perceive our species as a vermin infestation and humans might be reduced to hiding in the cosmos' walls so to speak, and forever running from the light.

In other words, people seek God, but there's no guarantee that they'll like whatever they eventually find.

But the emotions that accompany Stranger's ideas, his personal contempt for Christianity in this case, don't really interest me. That's just more noise on a channel where the signal-to-noise ratio is already low.
 
StrangerInAStrangeLa said:
I've posted much less about religion than you. It is not my fault you cannot handle the truth.
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But what truth does calling the Bible the "Holybabble" convey, apart from the fact that you are personally contemptuous of it? Why should other people find your emotions even remotely interesting?

You may as well be talking about Mother Goose. Show me a god or stand down.
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Ok, try this: Millions of people report religious experiences. They are rather common. Obviously there are plenty of epistemological questions swirling around the whole subject of religious experience and the evidenciary value that these experiences may or may not have.

The thing is, you can't effectively engage with serious issues merely by displaying attitude.
 
Greatest I am said:
Our friend forgets that morals are developed to learn to live with those of your own kind. God has no other so he cannot have learned morals.
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That's certainly plausible, but I'm still not totally convinced.

For example, in Buddhism ethical behavior is the outer world expression of individual psychology, of one's own inner-process so to speak.

What drives our social behavior with other people are precisely the same inner needs, goals, purposes, feelings and assessments that drive us internally. (That define who and what we are, in a sense.) The perceived need to build up and protect one's own vision of one's self is typically most prominent among them.

And Buddhists believe that a great deal of what's happening inside most people's heads all the time is ultimately disfunctional. Disfunctional in an individual psychology sense in that it causes the individuals concerned to suffer, and disfunctional in a social sense, since one person's disfunctionality often causes those around them to suffer as well.
 
Yazata said:
Ok, try this: Millions of people report religious experiences. They are rather common.
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I do not agree with this.

I am the only one I know who has claimed apotheosis. I would say it is rather rare.

Or are you speaking of some like the latest guy who had an out of body experience and said that while in heaven, he was a spot on the wing of a butterfly?

Yep. Quite believable that and no chance of it being a delusion. Not much of a chance that is. Right?

I would not mind reading a few of those millions of experiences though if you would not mind linking me up.

Regards
DL
 
Yazata said:
That's certainly plausible, but I'm still not totally convinced.

For example, in Buddhism ethical behavior is the outer world expression of individual psychology, of one's own inner-process so to speak.

What drives our social behavior with other people are precisely the same inner needs, goals, purposes, feelings and assessments that drive us internally. (That define who and what we are, in a sense.) The perceived need to build up and protect one's own vision of one's self is typically most prominent among them.

And Buddhists believe that a great deal of what's happening inside most people's heads all the time is ultimately disfunctional. Disfunctional in an individual psychology sense in that it causes the individuals concerned to suffer, and disfunctional in a social sense, since one person's disfunctionality often causes those around them to suffer as well.
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Interesting. Thanks.

"That's certainly plausible, but I'm still not totally convinced."

Good. I get to try another argument.

I will need you to answer a simple question though.

In terms or our best moral tenet or behavior, should our morality be focused outwardly towards others, or should our first moral tenet be focused toward ourselves?

Regards
DL
 
Yazata said:
I agree with Arne that "ImaginaryFiend" and "HolyBabbles" is gratuitously insulting and comes awfully close to trolling.
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It is a fiend as portrayed in the book they claim as their primary source & it is imaginary. It is also a little wordplay on imaginary friend. I don't want to call it the Holy Frigging Bible. Should I be coerced into that. Over 90% of it is silly, stupid, childish yet cruel babbling. Revelations was obviously written by someone(s) high on drugs. There is hardly any difference between Genesis & the average fairy tale. These are very appropriate terms I use for the figment of their imagination & their nonsense book. IF enough people believed Mother Goose is true, would you claim I am being insulting?

Yazata said:
If we are talking about the philosophical attributes, first-cause, sustainer-of-being or whatever, the thrust there seems to be towards ontological ultimacy of some kind.
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Those seem like power attributes to me.

Yazata said:
(I still don't know how to distinguish divinities from super space-aliens, that's another problem)
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Neither do theists. Years ago, there was a thread on what would be proof of a god. Someone said if some being moved planets around. I said we should try to figure out how it was done & if some device was used, I hope I get a chance to figure how to operate it. They asked if I am Indiana Jones. This is 1 of many serious plausibility problems with godfantasy. There could be beings thousands or millions of years more advanced than Earth humans who theists would easily mistake for their gods. IF some of their most outrageous claims did happen, that would be a much more plausible explanation than supernatural gods.
 
Yazata said:
Stranger's use of 'ImaginaryFiend' and 'Holybabbles' was obviously intended to convey his own personal contempt for theism and for Christianity in particular.

I'm unsure whether his reason for doing that was simply an attempt to anger those he perceives as 'the other side' (that would be textbook trolling) or because he feels threatened by Christianity and this was a defense mechanism of some kind. I can't imagine how calling a threat names can possibly make somebody more secure, but people often behave as if it does.

But the emotions that accompany Stranger's ideas, his personal contempt for Christianity in this case, don't really interest me. That's just more noise on a channel where the signal-to-noise ratio is already low.
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What is obvious to you just might not be so. I don't attempt to anger anyone & I usually don't attempt to pacify anyone. I don't call names & such would have no effect on my feeling secure. I state facts. As much as I think I can here. I know that I cannot state the full truth here. There were no emotions accompanying my ideas & I must wonder why you see what is not there.
 
Yazata

Care to comment on this quote?

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

Regards
DL
 
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
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Unintelligible can be a function of the knowledge or the ignorance level of the audience. If the audience are experts and know the subject and all the jargon, a person using the wrong terms, can make his ideas appear unintelligible to this expert audience. On the other hand, if the speaker knows the subject, his jargon and arguments can be right, but it will appear unintelligible to the layman audience who can't follow this due to lack of education.

Ridicule happens for different reasons in each scenario. The smarter audience may try to figure out the communication problem of the speaker, as a challenge. An expert is not ridiculed, by not understanding a dummy. He may get exasperated and frustrated trying to create a meeting of the minds. A lay audience can get ridiculed easier, by not understanding the smarter speaker. They may use ridicule for self defense to avoid feeling ridiculed.

That being said, anyone familiar with the bible, is always amazed at the elementary school education that atheists have when it comes to bible discussions. It is hard to get very deep, to prove your point, since the discussion is stuck at what Christians will teach their first graders. If you argue the bible, beyond the first grade level, it appears unintelligible, with ridicule a feature that appears atheists wide. One is not allowed to use bible quotes like high school bible students need to do. This is taboo. It has to remain at the mythology level taught to a child.

It would be more useful if atheism allowed at least junior high level knowledge of the bible, for member atheists. This would make the layman audience less self conscious of being ridiculed, so they are less likely to attack with ridicule. Bible is not the forte of atheism, so they are the lay audience which cannot grasp things beyond too complicated.
 
wellwisher said:
Unintelligible can be a function of the knowledge or the ignorance level of the audience. If the audience are experts and know the subject and all the jargon, a person using the wrong terms, can make his ideas appear unintelligible to this expert audience. On the other hand, if the speaker knows the subject, his jargon and arguments can be right, but it will appear unintelligible to the layman audience who can't follow this due to lack of education.

Ridicule happens for different reasons in each scenario. The smarter audience may try to figure out the communication problem of the speaker, as a challenge. An expert is not ridiculed, by not understanding a dummy. He may get exasperated and frustrated trying to create a meeting of the minds. A lay audience can get ridiculed easier, by not understanding the smarter speaker. They may use ridicule for self defense to avoid feeling ridiculed.

That being said, anyone familiar with the bible, is always amazed at the elementary school education that atheists have when it comes to bible discussions. It is hard to get very deep, to prove your point, since the discussion is stuck at what Christians will teach their first graders. If you argue the bible, beyond the first grade level, it appears unintelligible, with ridicule a feature that appears atheists wide. One is not allowed to use bible quotes like high school bible students need to do. This is taboo. It has to remain at the mythology level taught to a child.

It would be more useful if atheism allowed at least junior high level knowledge of the bible, for member atheists. This would make the layman audience less self conscious of being ridiculed, so they are less likely to attack with ridicule. Bible is not the forte of atheism, so they are the lay audience which cannot grasp things beyond too complicated.
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You might like to check the stats that show non-believers know more of most religions than those in them.

Sheep make poor thinkers.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Yazata

Care to comment on this quote?

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
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First off, I'd question whether Thomas Jefferson actually said that. (If he did say it, what was the context?) On its face, it's a stupid thing to say and Jefferson most definitely wasn't a stupid man. I doubt very much whether he would have endorsed ridicule at the University of Virginia (which he founded) as the proper response to propositions that one doesn't understand. Scholars, students and researchers can't behave that way.

If somebody says something that seems unintelligible, the best thing to do is to start asking questions.

Is the other person using unfamiliar words or familiar words in unfamiliar and perhaps idiosyncratic ways?

What assumptions is the other person presupposing in arguing as he/she does?

Is somebody making a factual error?

If somebody claims to know something that seems unlikely on its face, or perhaps even unknowable in principle, then how do they explain how they know it?

And if what the other person says really does seem to be absurd on its face, if it implies a contradiction or appears to have absurd implications, then why not ask the other person what their response is to the seeming difficulties?

Trying to provoke perceived opponents by calling them or their views insulting names lacks intellectual substance and communicates nothing but disdain. Rhetorically speaking, attempts to move disagreement away from intellectual-inquiry towards emotional-confrontation are almost always counterproductive. That move only succeeds in drawing battle-lines, hardening opponents against each other, and making the possibility of eventual agreement all the less likely.
 
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