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Right-wing fundamentalist's dilemma


Guest Paul

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, Similarly, if your concept of justice is a loving and omnipotent god with a hell awaiting those who fall short (in whatever way the particular "believer" thinks is important), then the problem is with your conception of God.

About "falling short," the Bible says:

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" Romans 3:23-24

See Paul, God is both just and loving. The two are not incompatible. Although man has fallen short, he was redeemed (or bought back) by Christ himself.

"But God demonstrates his own love toward us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Paul, God Loved you and I so much, that he paid the price for our sin. It would be as if I were guilty of a capital crime here on earth, and the judge's son said, "Dad, please allow me to do his time for him. He has repented, I'm offering myself in his place." That's what Jesus did for us. Its obvious that you are bitter towards God at this time, but rest assured, If the day comes that you want to experience God's love and acceptance, he will embrace you.

"That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9

In short, God loves you Paul and its my prayer that you would give his love a chance. As a side note, a lot of Christians love you too. I personally know four local Pastors who meet on a weekly basis to pray, and your salvation is one of their requests.

That's very nice and I have no doubt you and your local pastor acquaintances are sincere. However, why were they silent while my son was being attacked? Instead of praying for me, why did they not speak out? Please tell them that I would be happy to meet with them.

Your explanation assumes a lot of things both about me and about the nature of reality, but it doesn't address my question. You say eternal torment is compatible with justice, but you don't say how. Just saying it doesn't mean anything. The question is: what values are served by eternal torment? You can't just say "it's justice" without saying how. Justice is an all-encompassing value judgment. Without reference to specific values, it is meaningless. For example, a terrorist can say he is serving justice, but when we look at what he is doing and how it affects people in the context of the whole world, there's no basis to support his claim to "justice." That's what I'm asking you to do: tell me how eternal torment serves good values. I say it does not.

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, Similarly, if your concept of justice is a loving and omnipotent god with a hell awaiting those who fall short (in whatever way the particular "believer" thinks is important), then the problem is with your conception of God.

About "falling short," the Bible says:

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" Romans 3:23-24

See Paul, God is both just and loving. The two are not incompatible. Although man has fallen short, he was redeemed (or bought back) by Christ himself.

"But God demonstrates his own love toward us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Paul, God Loved you and I so much, that he paid the price for our sin. It would be as if I were guilty of a capital crime here on earth, and the judge's son said, "Dad, please allow me to do his time for him. He has repented, I'm offering myself in his place." That's what Jesus did for us. Its obvious that you are bitter towards God at this time, but rest assured, If the day comes that you want to experience God's love and acceptance, he will embrace you.

"That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9

In short, God loves you Paul and its my prayer that you would give his love a chance. As a side note, a lot of Christians love you too. I personally know four local Pastors who meet on a weekly basis to pray, and your salvation is one of their requests.

Here’s what is wrong with the above post intellectually:

1. It assumes the truth of a particular religion without any foundation.

2. It assumes the literal truth of the Bible.

3. It assumes that eternal torment and love are compatible.

4. It does not explain why eternal torment and love are compatible.

5. It does not explain why, if Christ paid the price for our sins, a price remains to be paid.

6. It assumes that Paul is bitter apparently because he rejects the writer’s religious beliefs. The conclusion does not follow from the premises and I see no other basis for drawing it.

Here’s what is wrong with the above post spiritually:

1. It is arrogant. The writer assumes that his/her religion is right for someone else.

2. It is presumptuous. The writer presumes to lecture another person about the divine.

3. It is disrespectful. The writer dismisses out of hand and without even knowing what they are that Paul’s religious beliefs may have merit.

4. It is judgmental. It assumes bitterness in another person. There is no basis for that statement.

5. It is passive-aggressive. “Love God, or go to hell” is really “agree with me or go to hell.” Let’s stop kidding ourselves about what is really going on when someone says this.

6. It is spiritually blind. It overlooks that if there is a god who loves us, no one is going to suffer eternally in hell. A just and loving god would punish only as much as was necessary to redeem our souls. Without redemption and rehabilitation, punishment is pointless. A just god would not punish without a sufficient purpose. There would never come a time when God would give up on even one of his children.

There is probably a lot more, but those are a few obvious points.

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You're referring to Paul's dodging when called upon to justify his "objective" and "universal" values, yes?

Maybe you'd have started up your own thread, like I did here:

http://forums.kearnyontheweb.com/index.php?showtopic=5863

Your paragraph above is filled with historical inaccuracies.

Can you back up your claim regarding my claiming I was right?

How do you justify the claim that I don't go anywhere near the issue when I started a thread to address the issue?

"Guest" by all appearances thy name is Hypocrite.

Feel free to copy and paste this latter portion into the thread that I started for the discussion of this issue.

http://forums.kearnyontheweb.com/index.php?showtopic=5863

Unless you have no intention of discussing it, that is.

No, Bryan, I was referring to you. In none of your posts, including topic 5863, do you make any case on values. All you do is state without any foundation the theological argument that a perfectly just being could not abide imperfection. Leaving aside the fact that an omnipotent being could abide anything (not condone it, but abide it), that is not a statement of values but an empty supposition. You're still not making any case at all why eternal torment in hell is just. Saying that it's in God's nature is just a claim, and it has no basis in any values.

Bryan, you’re still not setting forth a values system. Where is it?

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See Paul, God is both just and loving.  The two are not incompatible.  Although man has fallen short, he was redeemed (or bought back) by Christ himself.

Have any of you people who believe in hell ever actually thought about what you’re condoning? War veterans who have seen a lot of killing often return from battle emotionally damaged, sometimes for the rest of their lives. That’s just from watching other people die and being in danger of death themselves.

Try to imagine what being burned alive would be like. The pain would literally be unbearable, so much so that after a few minutes the person suffering it would pass out. Mercifully, no one endures that much pain for more than a few minutes, at which time they die.

People can be driven insane by intense pain. It doesn’t reform them. It brutalizes them to the point that the operations of their minds are damaged.

You people want to imagine that some of us (maybe most of us!) are going to suffer that kind of intense pain every moment for eternity. And you want us to believe that the God who loves us not only allows this to happen, but calls it justice. First I wonder what kind of a monster you think God is, but then I wonder: what is wrong with you! Don’t you see what thinking like that does to your soul, and what it has done to the soul of our culture? What is wrong with you?

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You seem to be hoping that's what I'm saying, but I really saying that god is the anchor of reality, not the reverse.  God, in effect, is stuck being god.  If god is god and not-god at the same time and in the same sense, then you might well be forced to admit that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine is god.

You might complain that the figurine evidences no power to create things at will, but I would simply reply that he doesn't do stuff like that any longer.  And then you might complain that the figuring was manufactured in 2005, but I'd simply point out that there's no reason why god can't just stop being spirit/good/all-powerful/etc to become a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine at any time He wishes.

It's an assumption that I make for the sake of being able to discuss things on a reasonable basis (see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle illustration above).  If you want to  make god above logic, you have forever put any reasonable argument against god's existence out of your reach.

I'll play along if you want to do that, just to enjoy laughing at you.  Try an argument on that basis any time you wish.

In Bible terms, it means that God has more power than anybody else and that other entities derive their powers from god.

Theologians have further argued that god has sufficient power to perform any self-consistent act that is also consistent with his nature.

Under that type of framework, a god who by nature was loving could not create an existence entirely made up of a hell populated with suffering souls.  That reality would be inconsistent with god's existence.

Incorrect.  The problem with your analogy lies in the (scientist's) assumption that particle=not-wave and wave=not-particle.

You gave an example of an apparent paradox, not a contradiction.

I don't need to know what "orange" ultimately is or what relationship it plays to reality.  The law of non-contradiction is fundamental to our ability to discuss things using reason.  A must needs be A, and likewise not-A must not be A.

I don't, and if you'll accept the idea you've suggested then you should be extremely open to the possibility of god's existence and prepared to reject any argument against the existence of god.

Ah-ah-ah--not so fast.  How do you know I don't know, by the terms of your own argument?

(there's not really any such thing as a dilemma, if you offered your argument above sincerely--you can't know of a dilemma in which to place me because of the possibility of all those dimensions--remember?).

I dunno--but surely there's a possibility of something in the 19th dimension--don't you agree?

No, it doesn't render my religion empty, but if you'll abandon your suggestion that additional dimensions and whatnot make anything possible then I'll be prepared to entertain your argument to that effect.

Lacking that, you're just wasting your own time and mine.

I realize you're speaking in another sense, but isn't that a distinction without a difference? If not, what is the meaning in the distinction?

If you overcome your willingness to consider that absolutely anything is possible (such as the distinction making a difference despite your apparently unfounded suspicion otherwise), feel free to specify what distinction you're talking about.

It's your system, Bryan. It's not up to other people to explain it for you. And no, you haven't.

What do I need to do that I haven't done, IYO?

Here's another question. What if God has a special place reserved in hell for people who think they can define limits on what he can do? How's that for a dilemma, Bryan? Care to answer it?

I'll be there in company with those who define god as being limited to not being limited.  If I get there first, I'll keep your spot warm.  :huh:

People, "Guest" just gave us an illustration of a toddler fingerpainting with logic.

What a mess.

1. What is “the anchor of reality?” Don’t tell me it’s God. I’m asking you what the hell you mean by "anchor of reality."

2. How do you know a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle isn’t God?

3. I’m glad you admit your argument is based on an assumption, but after you’ve admitted that, isn’t the rest of your argument just guesswork? If not, what is it based on? Please explain in detail.

4. OK, so now omnipotence doesn’t mean all the power. It just means that God is the baddest dude in the universe. Which means what, exactly? And how do you know any of that?

5. A skeptical agnostic might acknowledge that he cannot prove there is no god, but observe that he has no more reason to believe there is a god than he has to believe there are invisible monkeys flying out his ears. Once you’ve reached that level of abstraction, isn’t the rest of the argument meaningless except as a means for people who fancy themselves clever to show off how smart they think they are? If not, why not?

6. You're still avoiding the question.

It’s quite amusing watching you tell other people how much smarter you are than they, and then watch you post something like this.

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1. What is “the anchor of reality?” Don’t tell me it’s God. I’m asking you what the hell you mean by "anchor of reality."

That on which everything else is based, self-sufficient and non-contingent.

You may have to actually learn a little bit of logic to figure out what I'm saying.

2. How do you know a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle isn’t God?

That was my argument to you. What do you hope to gain by asking my question back at me?

You think that the existence of God is plausible, don't you? After all, you've probably seen a TMNT figurine in your time.

3. I’m glad you admit your argument is based on an assumption, but after you’ve admitted that, isn’t the rest of your argument just guesswork? If not, what is it based on? Please explain in detail.

Everybody operates from assumptions of the type I described to you (axioms). If you accept your own argument then you're wasting time by arguing pointlessly with me.

4. OK, so now omnipotence doesn’t mean all the power.

When did it ever mean "all the power" except in some atheist's straw-man imagination?

It just means that God is the baddest dude in the universe. Which means what, exactly? And how do you know any of that?

Let's just stick with you not knowing that I don't know that (to stay in keeping with your silly epistemic stonewalling).

5. A skeptical agnostic might acknowledge that he cannot prove there is no god, but observe that he has no more reason to believe there is a god than he has to believe there are invisible monkeys flying out his ears.

Perhaps he should be skeptical of his supposition that he has not more reason to believe that there is a god than he has to believe that there are invisible monkeys flying out of his ears.

But, hey, why be consistent? :huh:

Once you’ve reached that level of abstraction, isn’t the rest of the argument meaningless except as a means for people who fancy themselves clever to show off how smart they think they are? If not, why not?

Why would you think we have reached that level of abstraction (leaving you the burden of proof you're trying to pawn off on me).

6.            You're still avoiding the question.

I've shown why the question is nonsense and as such should be avoided. Got a problem with that? If so, address my argument.

It’s quite amusing watching you tell other people how much smarter you are than they, and then watch you post something like this.

I don't tell other people how much smarter I am than they are (nice lie, though). Sometimes it probably becomes obvious even though I don't say anything, however.

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No, Bryan, I was referring to you.

That's odd, when you have much better reason to refer to Paul.

In none of your posts, including topic 5863, do you make any case on values.

That's true for the present, but I've shown how we need some sort of foundation for values or else the judgment based on values isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

For example, I could say that Joe Smith believes that hell is perfectly just. That's a case built on values--but what's it worth? The argument is pointless unless we have an agreed foundation for values. Paul has avoided that issue, and in fact ignores it in favor of suggesting that I'm not addressing the issue. If that's not intellectual laziness on his part then perhaps it's overt dishonesty.

And look! You're his little helper.

All you do is state without any foundation the theological argument that a perfectly just being could not abide imperfection.

Well, no, that's not all I do, but there's nothing wrong with doing that anyway, since the issue was how could hell be just, not does hell really exist. That issue only requires an internally consistent answer. It need not correspond to reality.

Meanwhile, Paul avoids discussing his foundation for morality, which appears to rest on his foundationless assertion--yet for some reason you don't seem to have any problem with that.

It's very important for Paul to establish some foundation for judging hell as unjust. His opinion doesn't cut it any better than Joe Smith's.

Leaving aside the fact that an omnipotent being could abide anything (not condone it, but abide it), that is not a statement of values but an empty supposition.

It's no more empty than Paul's supposition that values are universal. All it has to be is internally consistent to answer the question, unless Paul wants to go further and judge the system according to some morality that has a foundation (but then we're back to trying to pry that information out of a reluctant Mr. LaClair again).

You're still not making any case at all why eternal torment in hell is just.

Sure I am.

Saying that it's in God's nature is just a claim, and it has no basis in any values.

Why would it need to have a basis in values?

Bryan, you’re still not setting forth a values system. Where is it?

Why would I need to set forth a values system? You and Paul need one, or else the claim that hell is unjust is a fundamentally unsupportable claim.

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Here’s what is wrong with the above post intellectually:

1. It assumes the truth of a particular religion without any foundation.

Here's what's wrong with the above post intellectually (or at least the tip of the iceberg):

1. It assumes that a particular religion is assumed to be true without foundation without foundation.

Guest, thy name is hypocrite.

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You people want to imagine that some of us (maybe most of us!) are going to suffer that kind of intense pain every moment for eternity. And you want us to believe that the God who loves us not only allows this to happen, but calls it justice.

We want you to believe it, not because we do, but because God ordained it.

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." Jesus Christ as recorded in John 3:18-19

You see, Hell is not a "church doctrine" but a Bible doctrine. Your argument isn't with Christians necessarily, but Jesus himself. He himself claims that he came to save the world. However, rejecting his sacrifice for your sin leaves you condemned. That's right, "condemned." Hell was never intended as a place of rehabilitation. It is a place of eternal condemnation for rejecting the love offering of God in your place on the cross.

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Strife's quote:

Of course! It's written in a millenia-old compilation of superstitions; it's GOT to be true! [/color][/color]

Strife, If you call fulfilled prophecy in recorded scripture "a millenia-old compilation of superstitions," wouldn't your assumptions based on the origins of man and the universe extrapolated back billions of years be superstition as well? :blink:

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Psalm 14:1a

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You people want to imagine that some of us (maybe most of us!) are going to suffer that kind of intense pain every moment for eternity. And you want us to believe that the God who loves us not only allows this to happen, but calls it justice.

We want you to believe it, not because we do, but because God ordained it.

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." Jesus Christ as recorded in John 3:18-19

You see, Hell is not a "church doctrine" but a Bible doctrine. Your argument isn't with Christians necessarily, but Jesus himself. He himself claims that he came to save the world. However, rejecting his sacrifice for your sin leaves you condemned. That's right, "condemned." Hell was never intended as a place of rehabilitation. It is a place of eternal condemnation for rejecting the love offering of God in your place on the cross.

To what end?

You see, the whole thing is made up, and to make matters worse, it makes absolutely no sense.

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That's odd, when you have much better reason to refer to Paul.

That's true for the present, but I've shown how we need some sort of foundation for values or else the judgment based on values isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

For example, I could say that Joe Smith believes that hell is perfectly just.  That's a case built on values--but what's it worth?  The argument is pointless unless we have an agreed foundation for values.  Paul have avoided that issue, and in fact ignores it in favor of suggesting that I'm not addressing the issue.  If that's not intellectual laziness on his part then perhaps it's overt dishonesty.

And look!  You're his little helper.

Well, no, that's not all I do, but there's nothing wrong with doing that anyway, since the issue was how could hell be just, not does hell really exist.  That issue only requires an internally consistent answer.  It need not correspond to reality.

Meanwhile, Paul avoids discussing his foundation for morality, which appears to rest on his foundationless assertion--yet for some reason you don't seem to have any problem with that.

It's very important for Paul to establish some foundation for judging hell as unjust.  His opinion doesn't cut it any better than Joe Smith's.

It's no more empty than Paul's supposition that values are universal.  All it has to be is internally consistent to answer the question, unless Paul wants to go further and judge the system according to some morality that has a foundation (but then we're back to trying to pry that information out of a reluctant Mr. LaClair again).

Sure I am.

Why would it need to have a basis in values?

Why would I need to set forth a values system?  You and Paul need one, or else the claim that hell is unjust is a fundamentally unsupportable claim.

Do values matter to God? If so, which values, and how do they matter to him?

If not, on what basis can you say that God is good, and what was with all that commandment stuff?

That is why you need a values system. How utterly ironic that the purported Christian is now arguing that values are not necessarily central to justice. Then what is justice?

Or I have we misread you? Are you not a Christian?

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The lesson in the origanal question is actually that Jesus is the author of moral absolutes.

You mean like "thou shalt not kill"? If that is a moral absolute, then why are so many self-proclaimed Christians in favor of war and capital punishment?

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That's very nice and I have no doubt you and your local pastor acquaintances are sincere. However, why were they silent while my son was being attacked? Instead of praying for me, why did they not speak out? Please tell them that I would be happy to meet with them.

Your explanation assumes a lot of things both about me and about the nature of reality, but it doesn't address my question. You say eternal torment is compatible with justice, but you don't say how. Just saying it doesn't mean anything. The question is: what values are served by eternal torment? You can't just say "it's justice" without saying how. Justice is an all-encompassing value judgment. Without reference to specific values, it is meaningless. For example, a terrorist can say he is serving justice, but when we look at what he is doing and how it affects people in the context of the whole world, there's no basis to support his claim to "justice." That's what I'm asking you to do: tell me how eternal torment serves good values. I say it does not.

You say justice is an all encompassing value judgment. I say justice is very simply, fairness. By this definition, eternal torment is compatible with justice. It is perfectly just for God to punish a man eternally for rejecting salvation. After all:

1. God created man and gave him life.

2. God sustains man.

3. God entered human time, flesh and space to die for man.

The only unforgiveable sin is rejecting Christ as your Savior from the penalty of sin. Therefore, in answer to your question, eternal torment serves the highest value, justice.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Roman's 6:23

Also, remember, those who accept Christ's gift of salvation enjoy eternal bliss.

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or morning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:4

By the way Paul, curious, what would you say is the highest value.

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That's odd, when you have much better reason to refer to Paul.

That's true for the present, but I've shown how we need some sort of foundation for values or else the judgment based on values isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

For example, I could say that Joe Smith believes that hell is perfectly just.  That's a case built on values--but what's it worth?  The argument is pointless unless we have an agreed foundation for values.  Paul have avoided that issue, and in fact ignores it in favor of suggesting that I'm not addressing the issue.  If that's not intellectual laziness on his part then perhaps it's overt dishonesty.

And look!  You're his little helper.

Well, no, that's not all I do, but there's nothing wrong with doing that anyway, since the issue was how could hell be just, not does hell really exist.  That issue only requires an internally consistent answer.  It need not correspond to reality.

Meanwhile, Paul avoids discussing his foundation for morality, which appears to rest on his foundationless assertion--yet for some reason you don't seem to have any problem with that.

It's very important for Paul to establish some foundation for judging hell as unjust.  His opinion doesn't cut it any better than Joe Smith's.

It's no more empty than Paul's supposition that values are universal.  All it has to be is internally consistent to answer the question, unless Paul wants to go further and judge the system according to some morality that has a foundation (but then we're back to trying to pry that information out of a reluctant Mr. LaClair again).

Sure I am.

Why would it need to have a basis in values?

Why would I need to set forth a values system?  You and Paul need one, or else the claim that hell is unjust is a fundamentally unsupportable claim.

Ah, Bryan: Gavin has it exactly right, you're such fun to play with. You've constructed your argument with such great attention to every point that you've neglected to notice where it has led you. Or perhaps you are aware of it and really believe it, which would be all the sadder.

For you, justice is not about the concerns of our lives, not about our welfare or our happiness, not about values like love, compassion, wisdom and generosity. No, for you justice is about maintaining plausible assertibility of just-so stories that have no basis in any known fact. And you admit that they don't.

For me, by contrast, justice is about the concerns of our lives, our welfare, our happiness and our values. I cannot prove whether a conscious being made what we call the universe, but I can tell you that if you describe such a being as being unconcerned with the lives, the welfare and the happiness of the children he has created, then my conclusion is that your description is wrong, and therefore I decline to follow it.

You may be quite impressed with your philosophy, but I am more impressed with what the experience of living and especially being a parent has taught me about Love. Argue it all you like, mere internal consistency cannot match the palpable experience of living, especially when you have to stretch beyond the point of all credulity to maintain it.

Our common humanity is a universal Truth among all humans. The idea of a god, much less any particular conception of God, is not.

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Ah, Bryan: Gavin has it exactly right, you're such fun to play with.

I think that Gavin has had time to realize that some of his comments exhibit a degree of bravado that he may live to regret. Paul LaClair appears to lack that degree of good sense.

You've constructed your argument with such great attention to every point that you've neglected to notice where it has led you. Or perhaps you are aware of it and really believe it, which would be all the sadder.

We seem to be poised for a fallacious appeal to outrage. Don't let me down, now. ;)

For you, justice is not about the concerns of our lives, not about our welfare or our happiness, not about values like love, compassion, wisdom and

generosity.

Why not?

Argument from outrage: argues against something without offering arguments besides saying that the thing would be unacceptible, or outrageous, or "wrong", or "silly", and so on.

http://keithdevens.com/wiki/Logical+fallacies

No, for you justice is about maintaining plausible assertibility of just-so stories that have no basis in any known fact. And you admit that they don't.

No, I don't.

I simply said that I addressed the question of how hell could be just. That doesn't mean that I don't have further arguments in support of the reality of the framework I suggest.

Paul can take the time if he wishes to present his justification for drawing that conclusion (yeah, right).

Do we have yet another stitch in the pattern of assert-and-run?

For me, by contrast, justice is about the concerns of our lives, our welfare, our happiness and our values.

And you'll get around to arguing for a foundation for that alleged contrast--right?

Let me spell it out for you. If god and hell are real, then those realities have incredible impact on our lives, our welfare, and our values.

Paul's argument, in fact, seems to go beyond arguing that's he's more concerned with human concerns than I am (albeit without foundation)--he would also assert without foundation that those human concerns somehow objectively establish the standard of human concerns for all--yet that's exactly the argument he hasn't been able to advance (whether by inclination or ability).

I cannot prove whether a conscious being made what we call the universe, but I can tell you that if you describe such a being as being unconcerned with the lives, the welfare and the happiness of the children he has created, then my conclusion is that your description is wrong, and therefore I decline to follow it.

And that really is Paul's argument in a nutshell. Somehow, he claims the moral authority to judge the morality of the situation. My hypothetical Joe Smith's opinions are no match for Paul's--but Paul won't tell us why his are preferable (not counting his discredited "universal" and "objective" system that isn't universal and attempts to cross the is/ought divide via magic).

Any skeptic who accepts that argument without a substantial justification isn't worthy of the term skeptic.

You may be quite impressed with your philosophy, but I am more impressed with what the experience of living and especially being a parent has taught me about Love. Argue it all you like, mere internal consistency cannot match the palpable experience of living, especially when you have to stretch beyond the point of all credulity to maintain it.

(Fallacy of appeal to incredulity, apparently justified by Love.)

See, it's not a matter of me being impressed with my own philosophy. It's a matter of me showing a willingness to discuss the issues with representatives from the other side, and then seeing them argue via logical fallacy, as Paul manifestly did above.

And he has the chutzpah to excuse himself because of his life experience and effusive love.

Our common humanity is a universal Truth among all humans.

:blink:

Yes, and?

Apparently Paul is unfamiliar with the manner in which tautologies are limited in application.

The idea of a god, much less any particular conception of God, is not.

At least it's not a tautology. :(

I'm going to suppose that Paul's apparent tautology, despite it's construction, was actually intended to be a re-statement of his claim to a universal moral system. I point the reader again to the fact that Paul hasn't been able to support that claim beyond the huffing and puffing stage.

The tautological construction (a tautology, for those who aren't familiar, is a statement that is obviously true because it is a redundancy) Paul chose above seems to fit that pattern. LaClair seems to have chosen the logical strength of the tautology (if a tautology has one thing, it's internal consistency), and tries to illicitly stretch that logical strength to his unsupported claims about "objective" and "universal" morality.

Paul's statement, on its face, reduces to "every human is human," which has absolutely no practical application to the issue of morality and values.

Try to imagine what it would take to disprove the claim that all human actions are self-interested. The claim would be definitely disproved if we could come up with one human action that wasn't self-interested, i.e., a counterexample. But if by definition all human actions are self-interested, there can be no possible counterexample. If there are no possible counterexamples, then the claim “all human acts are self-interested” is not falsifiable. If the claim is not falsifiable, then according to the verificationist criterion, the claim is meaningless.

So the claim “all human acts are self-interested” is either tautologous (true by definition, and therefore uninteresting, like “All circles are round”) or unfalsifiable (and therefore meaningless).

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Egoism.html

At this point, I've come to believe that Paul really has no clue how to go about making an argument for his position. I think he has little knowledge of philosophy and little aptitude for it--and this is judging solely from the character of his responses here at KOTW.

Think what you want of me--there's no way to read Paul LaClair's writing and take these arguments as intellectually serious except by sharing his ineptitude.

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Strife's quote:

Of course! It's written in a millenia-old compilation of superstitions; it's GOT to be true! [/color][/color]

Strife, If you call fulfilled prophecy in recorded scripture "a millenia-old compilation of superstitions," wouldn't your assumptions based on the origins of man and the universe extrapolated back billions of years be superstition as well?  :blink:

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  Psalm 14:1a

Uh-huh. Now we're going to quote the Bible and call it truth.

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Why would it need to have a basis in values?

Why would I need to set forth a values system?  You and Paul need one, or else the claim that hell is unjust is a fundamentally unsupportable claim.

Do values matter to God?

I think so. Why are you not answering my questions?

If so, which values, and how do they matter to him?

I do not exhaustively know which values are true values; I expect that all true (objective/moral) values are important to god.

Why are you not answering my questions?

If not, on what basis can you say that God is good, and what was with all that commandment stuff?

Because the Christian worldview makes sense on the whole, and because God looks "good" to me on so many issues that I trust god on the issues that I don't understand.

You appear to agree with me that some basis for judging god is necessary to call god "good"--can you now take the step of acknowledging my argument that one would similarly need a moral foundation in order to call god "unjust"?

Why do you think Paul LaClair and "Guest" have such difficulty providing that justification?

That is why you need a values system.

I provided one in my post on the topic here:

http://forums.kearnyontheweb.com/index.php?showtopic=5863

Paul refused to accept the foundation I offered, then abandoned the attempt to provide a coherent foundation for the substitute he offered.

Since I understand how philosophy works, I noted the importance of a foundation for judging justice (morality) was necessary in my first response to Paul in that thread.

http://forums.kearnyontheweb.com/index.php...indpost&p=48458

But Paul has fumbled away chance after chance to explain his position.

How utterly ironic that the purported Christian is now arguing that values are not necessarily central to justice.

I'm not making that argument. That makes for a great straw man, though.

Then what is justice?

Should[n't] the one who perceives the injustice (as with hell) be able to answer that question?

Speaking of which, why don't you answer my questions?

I am a Christian, and you have misread me (perhaps intentionally).

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You say justice is an all encompassing value judgment.  I say justice is very simply, fairness.  By this definition, eternal torment is compatible with justice.  It is perfectly just for God to punish a man eternally for rejecting salvation.  After all:

1. God created man and gave him life.

2. God sustains man.

3. God entered human time, flesh and space to die for man.

The only unforgiveable sin is rejecting Christ as your Savior from the penalty of sin.  Therefore, in answer to your question, eternal torment serves the highest value, justice.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  Roman's 6:23

Also, remember, those who accept Christ's gift of salvation enjoy eternal bliss.

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or morning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."  Revelation 21:4

By the way Paul, curious, what would you say is the highest value.

These are excellent questions, so please forgive me for the length of my response. It could have been far longer. No doubt this isn’t going to sit well with some people.

I believe justice is far more than mere fairness. In fact, we could ask “what is fair?” Some people think Communism is the fairest economic system because its principle is “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” In principle, this is closer to Jesus’ teachings than anything else, but the problem is that doesn’t work. As some people put it, “great idea, wrong species.”

Some people think “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is fair,” but Jesus (and Buddha and many others) had another idea; and in fact isn’t that new idea a major distinction between the old and new covenants? In Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, for example, Jean Valjean has spent nearly twenty years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. After he escapes, he wanders into a monastery, where the clergymen give him food, drink and a place to sleep for the night. In the middle of the night, he steals away, stealing also the monastery’s silverware. The police apprehend him and take him back to the monastery. Valjean tells the police that the silverware was a gift from the clergy, which is not true. However, when the police ask the head of the monastery, he confirms Valjean’s lie and adds that Valjean has forgotten to take the silver candlesticks, which he also gave (that is not true either). Is that fair? Well, it so touches Valjean that he becomes an honest man for the remainder of his life. In the truest sense, the priest saves Valjean’s soul. Whether it s fair to the clergymen or not, isn’t it the best thing they could do? They saved a man’s life, and then he passed their gift on to many others. That priest served others, which is what he devoted his life to do. Why isn’t that better than turning Valjean in and passing up that marvelous opportunity to change a man’s life, and with it the lives of others?

If Jesus is the person who told the great parables attributed to him, then I believe that he spoke a great many truths, but you and many other literalists do not seem to have heard them. Perhaps that is why you are willing to accept a patently unfair conception of God. There would be nothing fair about a god who sets up a world in which people have vastly different religious beliefs, and then eternally torments those who guess wrong.

Now you tell me a story, which I have heard many times before. The problem with it is that it is not true. I know to a moral certainty that it is not true, and here is how I know:

1. A loving god would not cause or allow even one of his children to suffer eternal torment if he had the power to prevent it, which of course he would have. Therefore, there is no hell to be saved from, and therefore no need for a savior of the kind you claim Jesus to be.

2. If God was going to send a savior for the entire human race, belief in whom is a condition for our salvation, he would not have neglected to tell entire populations about him for many centuries after he died. If the Jesus story had been true, Native Americans, Australian aborigines, Africans in remote areas and many others would have heard about Jesus immediately after he died to save them, not in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when white Europeans arrived only to find out that none of those peoples had ever heard the story. Why wouldn’t God tell them? You can’t argue that is the job of Christian missionaries (their great white saviors from Europe), because if God could send an angel to tell Mary she was going to become the mother of God (what a trip that would have been!), he could have sent angels all over the world to tell God’s children in Africa, the Americas, Africa and elsewhere the story before generations of those poor people were condemned to hell for not believing in a savior they had never heard of. And yet God remains silent to entire populations of his beloved people, thereby allowing many generations of them to be condemned, if we are to believe your story. Or, if you want to argue as many do, that those who have not heard are not condemned, then why all the fuss about belief being essential; why is belief said to be the single condition for salvation? If God can make exceptions for all the people who have never heard of Jesus, then do us all a favor and exempt us all so we won’t run the risk of sincerely making the wrong choice. And what that means is that no price had to be paid, because God can wipe the slate clean any way he wants. We humans are the ones who need the melodrama. Here’s the most important thing, supposedly, that God ever did since he created the human species, and the success of the entire thing depends on everyone hearing it and believing it, and God fails to tell them. There really is no way to make sense of this story, and that is because that is all it is. It is not true. It is a story. Sorry, that’s how I see it. I can see it no other sensible conclusion, and I don’t think lying about it is going to make me a better person, or more likely to be accepted into heaven if there is a heaven --- which would be marvelous. My faith is that if there is a heaven, we’re all going there because a loving god wouldn’t be thwarted in his intent and wouldn’t have it any other way. You can be of little faith and imagine that billions of your fellow human beings are going to burn in hell if you so choose, but I think when you do that you diminish the world and yourself.

3. Condemning a person to hell for sincerely believing in another religion would be sick, hypocritical and obnoxious. Therefore, a morally superior god would not do it. This is obviously a story made up by insecure men. If you want to talk about fairness, what is fair about a child who has been raised as a Hindu or a Buddhist, and devoutly and sincerely practices that faith, being condemned to eternal torment for holding to her faith just as you are now holding to yours?

4. Your explanation is petty and therefore unconvincing. No loving and just parent would think like that about children he loves. If you don’t understand that, I can’t explain it to you. All I can ask you to do is sit quietly and contemplate what you’ve written and what it means in relation to someone you truly love.

Fairness assumes that there is a proper state of affairs existing between and among people, but I don’t think that’s a useful, practical or even fair way of looking at things. It’s not fair that some people are born with greater intellects, healthier physical systems and fairer dispositions than others; or that that some people are born into wealth while others are born into poverty. If fairness is the highest value, then we would be morally obligated to give all children exactly equal means. We would either have to place all children into mansions or remove privileged children from their homes so they could be equal with everyone else. And since some children are born sick, in order to be fair we would have to make everyone sick; cut off every child’s limbs because some are born without them. Don’t blame me for the logical outcome of your values system, you’re the one who said fairness was more important than anything else, which I presume includes health, happiness, Love, etc. That’s the problem with thinking that way, because if you really apply it, that is exactly where it leads. It has to if you really believe what you wrote, which of course you don’t --- so why write it except that you just hadn’t thought it through.

Fairness is important, but its purpose is as much to hold society together as anything else. There are a great many systems that are compatible with the good, and in each of them fairness will be defined according to established customs and accepted ideas.

So to answer your question, I don’t accept your premise that there is a single highest value. All of the following are indispensable to building a world that really works. Take away any one of them, and the world is made less:

Love

Truth (especially the Truth that we are all human: this is the Truth that makes justice possible)

Faith (not belief without evidence, but acting for the good even though we have no guarantee of the result)

Wisdom

Caring

Courage

Generosity

Happiness

Health

Benevolence

Creativity

Imagination

Innovation

Honesty

Humility, including an appreciation that there are a great many things we humans do not know

Patience

Reflection

Contemplation

Self-scrutiny

Development of self, physically and mentally

Teaching and mentoring others

Serving as an example for others

Leadership

Finding one’s best and most productive role, whether as a leader or not

Responsibility

Understanding

Appreciation

Dedication

Diligence

Enthusiasm

Loyalty

Trust

Respect

Honoring others by the way we treat them

Peacefulness

Tolerance

There are many others, but you get the idea. I’ve spent years thinking about these things, more than ten years since I became a born-again Humanist. Before you cement your final judgments any further, just consider the possibility that there might be something useful in seeing the world as I and many others see it. Believe it or not, there may be people in the world who have thought about these things in ways you have not.

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Strife's quote:

Of course! It's written in a millenia-old compilation of superstitions; it's GOT to be true! [/color][/color]

Strife, If you call fulfilled prophecy in recorded scripture "a millenia-old compilation of superstitions,"

Oh, please.

"There are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled:

Retrodiction. The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it have already occurred.

Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies.

Inevitability. The prophecy can predict something that is almost sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to prophecy, it will.

Denial. One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly, one can forget that the prophecy was ever made.

Self-fulfillment. A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy.

There are no prophecies in the Bible that cannot easily fit into one or more of those categories." --http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH110.html

wouldn't your assumptions based on the origins of man and the universe extrapolated back billions of years be superstition as well?  :blink:

Care to list some of these alleged assumptions?

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  Psalm 14:1a

The Bible says in itself, "I'm right because I say I'm right." ;) Yeah, really solid evidence there. :(

For someone (you, for example) to be so stupid as to imply that something is correct just because it's written in a book, especially one written thousands of years ago, and is rife with absurdities, contradictions, etc. is truly astonishing.

Your god, as you define him, is a self-contradiction, and a self-contradiction cannot exist. Omnipotence and omniscience can't coexist. Perfection and creation can't coexist. The list goes on. I don't have to search all of existence to know with 100% certainty that a square with three sides doesn't exist. So too I can say with 100% certainty that your god, as you yourselves have defined him, doesn't exist.

Don't blame me, I didn't define an impossible god, you guys did. :P

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You say justice is an all encompassing value judgment.  I say justice is very simply, fairness.  By this definition, eternal torment is compatible with justice.

What? Only infinite sin could merit infinite punishment. Punishing anyone eternally for a mere, insignificant lifetime of sins is not just, nor fair. Your assertion is absolutely ridiculous.

It is perfectly just for God to punish a man eternally for rejecting salvation.  After all:

1. God created man and gave him life.

2. God sustains man.

3. God entered human time, flesh and space to die for man.

The only unforgiveable sin is rejecting Christ as your Savior from the penalty of sin.

So you think that eternal punishment and a lack of forgiveness are equivalent?

Therefore, in answer to your question, eternal torment serves the highest value, justice.

You are out of your mind.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  Roman's 6:23

Also, remember, those who accept Christ's gift of salvation enjoy eternal bliss.

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or morning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."  Revelation 21:4

Anyone can put words in a book. Only the most gullible would be convinced by random Bible quotes.

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Guest Red-Letter Edition
Love

Truth (especially the Truth that we are all human: this is the Truth that makes justice possible)

Faith (not belief without evidence, but acting for the good even though we have no guarantee of the result)

Wisdom

Caring

Courage

Generosity

Happiness

Health

Benevolence

Creativity

Imagination

Innovation

Honesty

Humility, including an appreciation that there are a great many things we humans do not know

Patience

Reflection

Contemplation

Self-scrutiny

Development of self, physically and mentally

Teaching and mentoring others

Serving as an example for others

Leadership

Finding one’s best and most productive role, whether as a leader or not

Responsibility

Understanding

Appreciation

Dedication

Diligence

Enthusiasm

Loyalty

Trust

Respect

Honoring others by the way we treat them

Peacefulness

Tolererance

There are many others, but you get the idea. I’ve spent years thinking about these things, more than ten years since I became a born-again Humanist. Before you cement your final judgments any further, just consider the possibility that there might be something useful in seeing the world as I and many others see it. Believe it or not, there may be people in the world who have thought about these things in ways you have not.

Paul, I found it interesting that justice did not make your list.

By the way, I like your list in general, however some values you listed don't actually qualify as values per se. "Health" for example, is a state of physical being, not a value. All are very important however. I just believe that justice is the foundation upon which a value system must be built. Two more questions Paul:

1. Can a god truly be considered a god of love if he is not absolutely just?

2. Curious, just what is a "born again" Humanist. Rather, what distinguishes a "born again" humanist from the ordinary variety?

For example, many people call themselves Christians, but I am a "born again" Christian. This term comes from John 3:3. In this verse Jesus says, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

The chapter is a dialogue between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus. In the dialogue, Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again" in order to experience salvation. In a nut shell, its not being born again physically, but spiritually. At the moment of faith in Jesus as Savior, the individual is reborn spiritually and becomes a child of God.

I like to use what I call the Roman Road when explaining the salvation experience.

It is called the Roman Road because all of the verses used can be found in the Apostle Paul's Epistle the the Romans.

There are essentially four things the individual must accept:

1. The individual must accept the fact that he is a sinner.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Roman's 3:23

2. The individual must accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Roman's 6:23

3. The individual must accept the fact that Christ paid the price for his sins.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this : While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Roman's 5:8

4. The individual must respond to Christ's love.

"For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Roman's 10:13

Any individual, regardless of race, sex or past or present sin can experience God's salvation by responding to God's love from a sincere heart by praying a simple prayer like this:

Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and that I don't deserve your salvation, but I also know that you are God. I also know that you died to pay for my sins on the cross. I know that death could not hold you and that you rose again proving that you are God. Please forgive me of my sins and make me one of your children.

Thank you Jesus.

Amen

As a an idividual who has eperienced inner peace and joy by sincerely praying this prayer inviting Christ into my life, I invite all who would read this reply to do the same. I want you to experience the inner peace that I have. It passes all earthly understanding.

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Guest Guest
Some people think “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is fair,” but Jesus (and Buddha and many others) had another idea; and in fact isn’t that new idea a major distinction between the old and new covenants? In Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, for example, Jean Valjean has spent nearly twenty years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. After he escapes, he wanders into a monastery, where the clergymen give him food, drink and a place to sleep for the night. In the middle of the night, he steals away, stealing also the monastery’s silverware. The police apprehend him and take him back to the monastery. Valjean tells the police that the silverware was a gift from the clergy, which is not true. However, when the police ask the head of the monastery, he confirms Valjean’s lie and adds that Valjean has forgotten to take the silver candlesticks, which he also gave (that is not true either). Is that fair? Well, it so touches Valjean that he becomes an honest man for the remainder of his life. In the truest sense, the priest saves Valjean’s soul. Whether it s fair to the clergymen or not, isn’t it the best thing they could do? They saved a man’s life, and then he passed their gift on to many others. That priest served others, which is what he devoted his life to do. Why isn’t that better than turning Valjean in and passing up that marvelous opportunity to change a man’s life, and with it the lives of others?

Here's another example. New York City's "finest" are its police officers who risk their lives for far less pay than other people make on Wall Street. Soldiers have defended our country since its founding. They have carried more than their "fair" share of our country's burden, yet who would deny that their service is as honorable as anything anyone could do? For them, justice didn't stop at "fairness." Justice was whatever they could do to serve their country.

And so I say that justice is everything we can do to serve people.

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Some people think “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is fair,” but Jesus (and Buddha and many others) had another idea; and in fact isn’t that new idea a major distinction between the old and new covenants?

You could have cleared up your misunderstanding about that merely by reading the Wikipedia entry on "eye for an eye," as a matter of fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_eye_for_an_eye

Ironic that Paul's livelihood rests on lex talionis, eh? Yet he doesn't appear to recognize it in the Bible, and even seems to argue against the morality of the concept while using it to line his pockets (while mistakenly supposing that Jesus contradicted the idea).

<snip synopsis of Les Miserables>

Is that fair? Well, it so touches Valjean that he becomes an honest man for the remainder of his life. In the truest sense, the priest saves Valjean’s soul. Whether it s fair to the clergymen or not, isn’t it the best thing they could do? They saved a man’s life, and then he passed their gift on to many others. That priest served others, which is what he devoted his life to do. Why isn’t that better than turning Valjean in and passing up that marvelous opportunity to change a man’s life, and with it the lives of others?

It could be, in some cases. As with communism, shouldn't we ask whether or not it works? Or does Paul want us to ignore that issue?

If Jesus is the person who told the great parables attributed to him, then I believe that he spoke a great many truths, but you and many other literalists do not seem to have heard them. Perhaps that is why you are willing to accept a patently unfair conception of God. There would be nothing fair about a god who sets up a world in which people have vastly different religious beliefs, and then eternally torments those who guess wrong.

It's not about those who "guess" wrong, IMHO. It's about those who sin and do not avail themselves of the solution to the sin problem.

The example of Israel itself should be instructive, here. Jesus encourages us to expect characters from the Hebrew scriptures in heaven, but none of them were "Christians" in the modern sense.

Paul is arguing against one particular type of Christian belief as though it covers the whole ball o' wax for those who acknowledge the existence of hell. This type of argumentation is typical of his imprecision.

1. A loving god would not cause or allow even one of his children to suffer eternal torment if he had the power to prevent it, which of course he would have. Therefore, there is no hell to be saved from, and therefore no need for a savior of the kind you claim Jesus to be.

Paul's apparent presupposition:

Omnipotence guarantees god's ability to save sinners from hell, regardless of the theological arguments representing centuries of philosophical thought. Those arguments are dismissed without acknowledgment.

Why is Paul apparently unwilling to argue the point? Why does he seem to expect people to accept his logic when he ignores the counterarguments?

2. If God was going to send a savior for the entire human race, belief in whom is a condition for our salvation, he would not have neglected to tell entire populations about him for many centuries after he died. If the Jesus story had been true, Native Americans, Australian aborigines, Africans in remote areas and many others would have heard about Jesus immediately after he died to save them, not in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when white Europeans arrived only to find out that none of those peoples had ever heard the story. Why wouldn’t God tell them? You can’t argue that is the job of Christian missionaries (their great white saviors from Europe), because if God could send an angel to tell Mary she was going to become the mother of God (what a trip that would have been!), he could have sent angels all over the world to tell God’s children in Africa, the Americas, Africa and elsewhere the story before generations of those poor people were condemned to hell for not believing in a savior they had never heard of. And yet God remains silent to entire populations of his beloved people, thereby allowing many generations of them to be condemned, if we are to believe your story. Or, if you want to argue as many do, that those who have not heard are not condemned, then why all the fuss about belief being essential; why is belief said to be the single condition for salvation? If God can make exceptions for all the people who have never heard of Jesus, then do us all a favor and exempt us all so we won’t run the risk of sincerely making the wrong choice. And what that means is that no price had to be paid, because God can wipe the slate clean any way he wants. We humans are the ones who need the melodrama. Here’s the most important thing, supposedly, that God ever did since he created the human species, and the success of the entire thing depends on everyone hearing it and believing it, and God fails to tell them. There really is no way to make sense of this story, and that is because that is all it is. It is not true. It is a story. Sorry, that’s how I see it. I can see it no other sensible conclusion, and I don’t think lying about it is going to make me a better person, or more likely to be accepted into heaven if there is a heaven --- which would be marvelous. My faith is that if there is a heaven, we’re all going there because a loving god wouldn’t be thwarted in his intent and wouldn’t have it any other way. You can be of little faith and imagine that billions of your fellow human beings are going to burn in hell if you so choose, but I think when you do that you diminish the world and yourself.

a) Why wouldn't god have neglected to tell whole populations about Jesus?

b ) People go to hell for sinning, not for not believing in Jesus (though actively dismissing Jesus may well be the "sin against the Holy Spirit" for which there is no forgiveness. The issue here is how much grace is owed). Paul seems to suggest that grace must be without limit--but that view seems absurd (as I've pointed out elsewhere, it may potentially lead to an infinite number of murders--Paul prefers to ignore the argument, calling it "silly"). In order to rescue his view from that absurdity, Paul has to draw a line somewhere--can he do it in principle better than the god of the Bible?

I'm willing to explore the issue--apparently Paul isn't.

3. Condemning a person to hell for sincerely believing in another religion would be sick, hypocritical and obnoxious. Therefore, a morally superior god would not do it. This is obviously a story made up by insecure men. If you want to talk about fairness, what is fair about a child who has been raised as a Hindu or a Buddhist, and devoutly and sincerely practices that faith, being condemned to eternal torment for holding to her faith just as you are now holding to yours?

c) Again, people are condemned to hell for sin, not for their religious beliefs per se. And what does sincerity have to do with it? If I sincerely believe that murdering 5,000,000 infidels will punch my ticket to heaven, why should my sincerity count for anything given the enormity of my sin? This points up the problem with Paul's supposed "objective" and "universal" morality--yes that one, the one he won't defend--the radically high number of exceptions to his "universal" morality should at least give him pause. It's hard to detect any pause at all in his sermons.

4. Your explanation is petty and therefore unconvincing. No loving and just parent would think like that about children he loves. If you don’t understand that, I can’t explain it to you. All I can ask you to do is sit quietly and contemplate what you’ve written and what it means in relation to someone you truly love.

Again, we find Paul advancing his argument with a barrage of unsupported assertions. Why isn't it just? Why, because it's not just ("no loving and just parent would think like that about children he loves")! In so many words, Paul completely dismisses the sincerity of Islamic parents who send their children off to be suicide bombers--yet in the very next paragraph he might remind us that morality is objective and universal based on humanity as whole.

Paul's position is incoherent by all appearances, yet he will not negotiate a shred of it.

Fairness assumes that there is a proper state of affairs existing between and among people, but I don’t think that’s a useful, practical or even fair way of looking at things. It’s not fair that some people are born with greater intellects, healthier physical systems and fairer dispositions than others; or that that some people are born into wealth while others are born into poverty. If fairness is the highest value, then we would be morally obligated to give all children exactly equal means. We would either have to place all children into mansions or remove privileged children from their homes so they could be equal with everyone else. And since some children are born sick, in order to be fair we would have to make everyone sick; cut off every child’s limbs because some are born without them. Don’t blame me for the logical outcome of your values system, you’re the one who said fairness was more important than anything else, which I presume includes health, happiness, Love, etc. That’s the problem with thinking that way, because if you really apply it, that is exactly where it leads. It has to if you really believe what you wrote, which of course you don’t --- so why write it except that you just hadn’t thought it through.

d) Fairness doesn't assume that there is a proper state of affairs existing between people. It assumes that there is a proper state of affairs in principle with which existing states of affairs should be aligned as closely as possible.

e) More of Paul's unsupported assertions: Why isn't it fair that some are born with greater intellect, healthier bodies, etc.? One can't help but marvel at the utility of Paul's moral system, with its philosophical foundations shrouded in secrecy (not to mention incoherence).

Fairness is important, but its purpose is as much to hold society together as anything else. There are a great many systems that are compatible with the good, and in each of them fairness will be defined according to established customs and accepted ideas.

(Though Paul apparently reserves the right to stand in judgment of all of those established customs and accepted ideas while fleeing any opportunity to justify his own system philosophically)

So to answer your question, I don’t accept your premise that there is a single highest value. All of the following are indispensable to building a world that really works. Take away any one of them, and the world is made less:

Love

Truth (especially the Truth that we are all human: this is the Truth that makes justice possible)

Paul exemplifies the value of creativity by wringing an application out of a tautology.

All carpenter ants are carpenter ants. Is carpenter ant justice likewise possible on that basis? Don't expect Paul to answer. He can't be bothered justifying his views. Others must justify their views to him, not the reverse.

Faith (not belief without evidence, but acting for the good even though we have no guarantee of the result)

Wisdom

Caring

Courage

Generosity

Happiness

Health

Benevolence

Creativity

Imagination

Innovation

Honesty

Humility, including an appreciation that there are a great many things we humans do not know

Patience

Reflection

Contemplation

Self-scrutiny

Development of self, physically and mentally

Teaching and mentoring others

Serving as an example for others

Leadership

Finding one’s best and most productive role, whether as a leader or not

Responsibility

Understanding

Appreciation

Dedication

Diligence

Enthusiasm

Loyalty

Trust

Respect

Honoring others by the way we treat them

Peacefulness

Tolerance

There are many others, but you get the idea.

Yes, I get the idea that Paul has just plainly illustrated the incoherence of his view again.

None of the above values is any higher than any of the others, hints Paul (there is not highest value). This makes them effectively absolutes (either that or relative--we'll wait on Paul to clarify ... probably we'll wait forever). Now observe the absurdity:

A man knocks on Paul LaClair's door in the middle of the night. The guy has a sawed off-shotgun under his arm, as Paul notes through the peephole in the door, but Paul cannot place Wisdom or Diligence over Trust. He lets the man in. The man asked Paul for all of his money and valuables. Though Paul knows it would not be responsible to give this man all of his valuables, he cannot place Benevolence below Responsibility, so he gives the man all of his valuables.

The man wants one more thing. Don't tell anybody what happened.

Paul struggles for a moment on this one--this might be a good tale to tell at the next Humanists meeting to give everybody a good example of his Loving nature. But he realizes that he can't put his wish to mentor others above Benevolence. And Honesty bids him tell the late night visitor that he intends to tell his friends. But what about Tolerance and Honoring others by the way we treat them? Paul finally realizes that he cannot place his Honesty and Mentoring above Tolerance and Honoring. He keeps the whole things secret (dreading Mrs. LaClair's questions about what happened last night, no doubt)--either that or he freezes up like one of Harry Mudd's androids realizing that he cannot fulfill the programming he has given himself.

I’ve spent years thinking about these things, more than ten years since I became a born-again Humanist.

In all seriousness, how could you have ended up with such an unworkable mess after spending 10 years on it?

Or is the problem your lack of ability to communicate your ideas clearly (hinting at a futile career in law when it comes to communicating with others)?

Before you cement your final judgments any further, just consider the possibility that there might be something useful in seeing the world as I and many others see it.

No question about it. Once someone like Paul sketches out his views, they are fair game for discussion with those who have other ideas ... which is frequently the point where Paul leaves. Regardless of Paul's reluctance to defend his views, we at least get a window into his worldview.

What a mess, from the look of it. We can hope that Paul will answer our questions about it, but more likely he'll engage in a fallacy of distraction (or a personal attack).

Believe it or not, there may be people in the world who have thought about these things in ways you have not.

And some people add 2+2 and get 5 as the sum.

Edited by Bryan
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