And do you believe God would justify you committing harm to people out of pure selfishness?
Why are you still twisting words? Do you delight in portraying me in the worst possible way?
For in the first case you said that it was me trying to justify my self (that is, my essence, my being-ness); and I said, no, it is God who justifies -- again referring to the self. And now you turn it around to imply that I think God would justify my wrong actions, as if He would make evil be good for my sake, which is absurd. But we receive justification apart from our actions, whether wrong or right. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
As plain as that is, why do you keep trying to trip me up with your rhetorical tricks? What have I done to make you hate me?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
As plain as that is, why do you keep trying to trip me up with your rhetorical tricks?
Highroller is just using the dialectical process to increase his understanding of you and your position. He hasn't actually insulted you or demeaned you and has only presented his own arguments and questions in response to his. It seems like he's trying to trip you up because he's not really providing an answer or conclusion. When it comes to a topic like this one I'm not sure there can be a definitive "right" answer.
From the outside it looks like Highroller believes in a truly loving God who forgives and doesn't consign people to hell while PandasRpeople2 believes in a God who rewards and punishes strictly based on the laws laid out in the Bible, with maybe a little wiggle room to ignore clearly outdated concepts and rules. Highroller wants to know why the idea of punishment of sin is so important to Pandas' and such a large concept in his mind and Pandas' has yet to really answer that question.
Highroller is just using the dialectical process to increase his understanding of you and your position.
Hardly. He presumes to understand my position fully and loudly condemns it.
He hasn't actually insulted you or demeaned you
Really? Then why have I felt no discourtesy or hostility from Crashing00, or Tiax, or any of the other atheists who have responded in this thread, but only from a Christian?
Highroller wants to know why the idea of punishment of sin is so important to Pandas' and such a large concept in his mind and Pandas' has yet to really answer that question.
And Highroller has yet to answer how the idea of God treating Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa exactly the same in the afterlife could possibly be an expression of love (never mind justice); for to render them equivalent is to state that all their acts in this life, everything they invested in building a self-definition, does not actually matter -- and so God mocks or makes a joke of the central aspect of humanity, which He Himself has invested us with.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Highroller is just using the dialectical process to increase his understanding of you and your position.
Hardly. He presumes to understand my position fully and loudly condemns it.
Let me see if I do understand your position correctly:
You've posted that (A) God would want someone to stay in a loveless relationship in which a person despises his wife and children and would leave them gladly in a moment's notice; (B) that God would punish that person with eternal hellfire if he did not stay in this relationship; and (C) that any of this is morally acceptable for either God or that person.
All three of those statements are incorrect.
He hasn't actually insulted you or demeaned you
Really? Then why have I felt no discourtesy or hostility from Crashing00, or Tiax, or any of the other atheists who have responded in this thread, but only from a Christian?
You have great difficulty distinguishing statements discrediting your arguments from statements attacking you personally. This has been a recurring problem throughout this thread.
Quote from Bitsy »
Highroller wants to know why the idea of punishment of sin is so important to Pandas' and such a large concept in his mind and Pandas' has yet to really answer that question.
No, Pandas has answered that question. Indeed, the answer has been clear for quite some time. This is about Pandas' ego. It has nothing to do with religion or God or justifying Christianity, it has to do with justifying Pandas.
It's why he's been constantly evasive, it's why he's doing logical somersaults; it's why, when pointed out that he's arguing something logically untenable, he'll say, "No, I'm not arguing that," and then later on will argue exactly that in the exact same post. Pandas has made this debate personal and thus is unable to participate in thread objectively, because he views any counterargument as threatening to his own person. This results in him performing these "mental gymnastics," because his ego needs to protect itself.
If you'll look in the URL I posted, Pandas has even gone so far as to make a threat to my person, saying if I convince him what he is saying is logically unsound, he will proceed to do immoral things, and moreover it will be my fault he did them. It's important to note that he's also arguing against a strawman, as I have stated outright that the lack of a hell does not mean a moral vacuum, and do believe that God affirms the difference between right and wrong.
You can't expect a rational argument from Pandas, because he's convinced himself he's right from the start, and has made this debate personal. Thus, the idea that he might be wrong becomes a thought he finds threatening on a deeply personal level. I've tried asking him to back away from making this debate personal, but as you can see, he's resisting that.
Highroller, I'm just going to post your responses to me from one of the earlier pages in this thread (it was post 107).
Quote from Highroller » »
So if I understand this correctly, when you think of someone who wouldn't torture their child for an eternity, your first thought is, "Pfft, what a helicopter parent?"
You love those false dichotomies don't you?
So you want people to suffer infinite agony for all of eternity.
Now do you see if you had just freaking admitted that, we could have saved two pages worth of denial from you?
Well, yes. Because you're advocating something morally unconscionable and being hypocritical on top of it. Were you expecting applause?
Well, you could not want people to suffer. That's entirely doable. It's called loving and forgiving people.
Or at least not being a dick.
Words straight out of your mouth: I love false dichotomies, I want people to suffer, I'm in denial, I'm morally unconscionable, I'm hypocritical -- and I'm a dick.
Oh, and yet I'm the one who's making this personal?
And you're still evading! You still will not directly (or even indirectly!) answer the question I repeated, for at least the third time, in my reply to Bitsy! Why don't you man up and do that, Highroller, instead of typing another mini-essay about everything that's wrong with me?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Before I go into this, I want to highlight that you did not actually respond to the part in which I called into question your position. You want to claim that I'm misrepresenting your position, but when I outline my understanding of your position and say I believe it's incorrect, you ignore it.
Words straight out of your mouth: I love false dichotomies, I want people to suffer, I'm in denial, I'm morally unconscionable,
To be clear, I said you were advocating something morally unconscionable, which you were.
I'm hypocritical -- and I'm a dick.
Oh, and yet I'm the one who's making this personal?
Yes, you are. All of the statements that you quoted are correct, and none of those — with the exception of the dick part — are in any way inappropriate in an intellectual discussion.
They're objective statements about your arguments. You have repeatedly made false dichotomies, you admitted to wanting people to suffer, you have demonstrated you are in denial, you have advocated something morally unconscionable, and you have been demonstrated to be hypocritical.
Once again, you are incapable of distinguishing between someone saying that your arguments are fallacious and someone attacking you personally.
And you're still evading! You still will not directly (or even indirectly!) answer the question I repeated, for at least the third time, in my reply to Bitsy! Why don't you man up and do that, Highroller, instead of typing another mini-essay about everything that's wrong with me?
I have done that already. Why repeat an argument I've already made, especially when you aren't even going to listen to it, and when I've touched upon it in my response to Bitsy?
Quote from Highroller »
It's important to note that he's also arguing against a strawman, as I have stated outright that the lack of a hell does not mean a moral vacuum, and do believe that God affirms the difference between right and wrong.
Let me see if I do understand your position correctly:
You've posted that (A) God would want someone to stay in a loveless relationship in which a person despises his wife and children and would leave them gladly in a moment's notice; (B) that God would punish that person with eternal hellfire if he did not stay in this relationship; and (C) that any of this is morally acceptable for either God or that person.
(A) God would often have us do things that are unpleasant or even excruciating (see: the crucifixion) out of love; for love is not merely a blissful emotional state. That would be better called infatuation or lust. If a person has made a commitment to a relationship, especially to the extent that he has allowed others to become dependent on him for their well-being, then he ought to, out of love, see that relationship through. For love encompasses duty and self-sacrifice and all manner of things that do not feel good. (I never said that I was in a "loveless" marriage, and certainly not that I "despise" my family -- only that my marriage has been often emotionally taxing and disappointing; and you seem to have conflated emotional disappointment with an absence of love. But the two can and often do coexist.)
(B) I do not believe that hell is a literal place of fire. I have stated that quite clearly. I do believe that if a person makes a habit of seeking separation from his fellow humans, especially those to whom he is beholden (like family and friends), for the sake of expedience or emotional gratification, that such behavior may dispose his soul to seek separation even from God.
(C) If you are a better arbiter or interpreter than me as to what constitutes morality, please produce for me a measuring device so that I can see where I fall short.
Quote from Highroller »
I have stated outright that the lack of a hell does not mean a moral vacuum, and do believe that God affirms the difference between right and wrong.
How does God affirm the difference between right and wrong? That's what you keep dancing around. For if there really is a difference, then different consequences must follow.
The way I read it, you have life set up like a flag football game for six year-olds. Good deeds are touchdowns and evil deeds are fumbles. But since we're dealing with six year-olds and we don't want to hurt their self-esteem, no one bothers keeping score and in the end everyone wins. Even if you fumble all the time and it becomes a frustration to your teammates, and even to you -- in the end, God overrules all frustration with the affirmation that YOU ARE A WINNER!
So, again, how does God affirm the difference between right and wrong?
Also, I admit that I have been getting overly emotionally invested in this discussion. I apologize for that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
(A) God would often have us do things that are unpleasant or even excruciating (see: the crucifixion) out of love; for love is not merely a blissful emotional state. That would be better called infatuation or lust. If a person has made a commitment to a relationship, especially to the extent that he has allowed others to become dependent on him for their well-being, then he ought to, out of love, see that relationship through. For love encompasses duty and self-sacrifice and all manner of things that do not feel good.
First of all, I sincerely hope that you were not telling the truth when you say that it is only the threat of hell that keeps you involved in the lives of your wife and children, and that only the fear of hell keeps you from abandoning them entirely.
Because if you were telling the truth, that means that you aren't behaving out of love at all. You are behaving out of fear. Specifically, you are behaving out of fear of punishment, which threatens your own well-being. That is not love.
A thief can refrain from robbing someone's house out of fear of punishment, but that is not love. It's fear. The thief does not care for the person's well-being. The thief is solely concerned for his own well-being. Whereas a person who loves someone would not rob that someone's house even if there were no threat of punishment, out of the love that person bears for the other.
(I never said that I was in a "loveless" marriage, and certainly not that I "despise" my family -- only that my marriage has been often emotionally taxing and disappointing; and you seem to have conflated emotional disappointment with an absence of love. But the two can and often do coexist.)
There is a huge difference between "I find my marriage to be emotionally taxing" and "I want to leave my wife and would act on this desire if only punishment from an external source were not a factor."
You might not have said the words "loveless marriage," but you certainly communicated such.
(B) I do not believe that hell is a literal place of fire. I have stated that quite clearly. I do believe that if a person makes a habit of seeking separation from his fellow humans, especially those to whom he is beholden (like family and friends), for the sake of expedience or emotional gratification, that such behavior may dispose his soul to seek separation even from God.
This does not make any sense. If hell is self-imposed, then how can God threaten hell?
And if God does not threaten hell, and you don't want to go to hell, then can't you just say, "I don't want to go to hell," and you won't be in it? You said that hell is something God apparently gives reluctantly to those who actively seek it, right? Didn't you say something along the lines of "God gives people what they want"? But you don't actively seek it. In fact, you seem pretty scared of it. So, doesn't that mean you won't go to hell by the parameters established?
(C) If you are a better arbiter or interpreter than me as to what constitutes morality, please produce for me a measuring device so that I can see where I fall short.
As I said, if you have provided an accurate statement of your opinions of your wife and children, then you cannot possibly be said to behave in a loving manner toward them, because the only reason you're there is because you're forced to be there. You are in their lives solely because you feel your own safety is threatened. Your concern is exclusively on yourself, not on them. We see this in your repeated assertions that you would gladly leave them at a moment's notice were the threat of hell not present.
And this is morally wrong because it involves you behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else. Likewise, were we to believe that God is indeed threatening you with hell and torment or whatever, then God is also morally wrong for behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else.
Quote from Highroller »
I have stated outright that the lack of a hell does not mean a moral vacuum, and do believe that God affirms the difference between right and wrong.
How does God affirm the difference between right and wrong?
... By affirming the difference between right and wrong. That is to say, by stating or asserting that there is a difference between right and wrong. Which is what "affirming" means.
For if there really is a difference, then different consequences must follow.
The different consequences are that one deed is right and the other deed is wrong.
Unless you're saying that there must be a punishment/reward-based system of ethics, in which case, not only does that not follow, but we've already been over this.
The way I read it, you have life set up like a flag football game for six year-olds. Good deeds are touchdowns and evil deeds are fumbles. But since we're dealing with six year-olds and we don't want to hurt their self-esteem, no one bothers keeping score and in the end everyone wins. Even if you fumble all the time and it becomes a frustration to your teammates, and even to you -- in the end, God overrules all frustration with the affirmation that YOU ARE A WINNER!
No, for this analogy to be correct, the good deeds would be sportsmanlike conduct and the bad deeds would be unsportsmanlike conduct.
So, again, how does God affirm the difference between right and wrong?
By saying that there is a difference. That's what "affirming" means.
Also, I admit that I have been getting overly emotionally invested in this discussion. I apologize for that.
I mean, I appreciate the apology, that's a big step for you, but you haven't harmed anyone except yourself as far as I can tell.
What you should ask yourself is why you got so emotional over this thread in the first place. Use this as a learning opportunity.
This does not make any sense. If hell is self-imposed, then how can God threaten hell?
A threat doesn't have to involve action on the part of one making it; it can simply be a declaration of cause and effect (although in that case we might prefer to call it a "warning" rather than a "threat.") God can warn sinners of hell just as a doctor can warn morbidly obese patients of an impending heart attack, though the dietary and lifestyle choices that lead to morbid obesity are self-imposed.
And if God does not threaten hell, and you don't want to go to hell, then can't you just say, "I don't want to go to hell," and you won't be in it? You said that hell is something God apparently gives reluctantly to those who actively seek it, right? Didn't you say something along the lines of "God gives people what they want"? But you don't actively seek it. In fact, you seem pretty scared of it. So, doesn't that mean you won't go to hell by the parameters established?
It was not ever my intent to say that God gives people what they want, but rather that He gives them what they choose. And of course there is a world of difference between wanting and choosing. An alcoholic could dearly want to stop drinking even as he chooses to drink. A compulsive gambler wants a lot of money and yet makes choices that impoverish her. And people could want heaven while routinely make choices that point them towards hell.
As I said, if you have provided an accurate statement of your opinions of your wife and children, then you cannot possibly be said to behave in a loving manner toward them, because the only reason you're there is because you're forced to be there. You are in their lives solely because you feel your own safety is threatened. Your concern is exclusively on yourself, not on them. We see this in your repeated assertions that you would gladly leave them at a moment's notice were the threat of hell not present.
That was not accurate, and I regret bringing it up. Even if it were accurate, I forgot that in debate one ought always to pose actuals as hypotheticals; I've been very out of practice.
And this is morally wrong because it involves you behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else.
Now then, considering a hypothetical man who really does despise his family, yet stays with them out of fear of punishment, and does so in such a way that they suspect his true feelings only obliquely, if at all -- how is that contrary to their interests? He is providing for them; they would not have his provision if he left. His presence creates stability; his departure could throw things into chaos. Do you not suppose that the wife and children would adamantly maintain that it is in their best interests to have a husband and father, even if he acts sometimes melancholy and agitated, than to not have one at all?
Do you believe that morality is or ought to be devoid of any utilitarian considerations?
Likewise, were we to believe that God is indeed threatening you with hell and torment or whatever, then God is also morally wrong for behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else.
It could very much be to the best interests of those in heaven to not have unrepentant murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers, gangbangers and other scoundrels running loose among them, trying to perpetuate their disastrous life choices out into eternity.
By affirming the difference between right and wrong. That is to say, by stating or asserting that there is a difference between right and wrong. Which is what "affirming" means.
I can hold up two crayons of the exact same color, one labeled "purple" and the other labeled "violet," and affirm that there is a difference between purple and violet. That doesn't make my statement true or meaningful.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Certainly I do not think that a book which has been venerated for thousands of years across six continents ought to be lightly dismissed with a self-assured, "Clearly, now we know better," especially when our society is becoming increasingly cruel and fractious despite expending great effort in preaching Tolerance.
I'm not saying we should throw out the whole book, I'm just saying we should be very open to changing the parts of it that can't be correct.
Pretty sure you misread me somewhere. I never said that Paul didn't "really mean" what he said about homosexuality. I said that I disagreed with him on that point; and that I interpret the acceptance of homosexuality as being consistent with the spirit of the Gospel rather than its literal letter, on the provision that one's sexual orientation is inborn and therefore appointed by God. People ought to honor the natures that God has given them.
I might have misread you, and I guess I did based on what you say later. However, I wouldn't say Paul's stance on homosexuality is constant with love and tolerance. To me, it seems the only reason you'd be trying to justify what he said about homosexuals in the spirit of the Gospels is because you feel he had a pipeline to God. If you felt he was just a guy ahead of his time, you'd not even worry about the stuff he said that is clearly incorrect. However, I acknowledge that I could be far off-base with this inference.
On a personal note, I'm glade we don't do physics like we seem to do morality. And, I'm hoping the way we do morality will start resembling the way we do physics.
Could you give an example of what you mean by this?
But, you've already essentially admitted that Jesus' statements on Hell simply can't work.
Wait, what? I'm the one who's been defending the idea of hell here!
My mistake. I must have been going of earlier threads you've made on the subject. I was unaware your opinion had evolved on this matter. I guess I'll need to reread and see how this new insight of yours jives with the old.
Because, yes, I take the leap of faith and believe that he was somehow both truly man and truly God.
And I feel this is a leap backwards when your trying to look critically at what is said and move forwards with it. If we thought Newton was an aspect of the Creator, then the work he did on alchemy would have a different connotation. In that case, Newton might have held science back as much--if not more--then he brought it forward.
My point is not that I would justify everything that is wrong in the Bible, but that I accept the Bible on the whole as being broadly correct about God and a valuable testament. Certainly I do not think that a book which has been venerated for thousands of years across six continents ought to be lightly dismissed with a self-assured, "Clearly, now we know better"...
What is your opinion on the Völuspá, the Iliad, the Qur'an, the Kitáb i-Aqdas, the Mahabharata, the Lotus Sutra, the Tao Te Ching, the Popol Vuh, the Book of Mormon, and Dianetics?
And I feel this is a leap backwards when your trying to look critically at what is said and move forwards with it. If we thought Newton was an aspect of the Creator, then the work he did on alchemy would have a different connotation. In that case, Newton might have held science back as much--if not more--then he brought it forward.
If all I were to do was to look critically and continually at everything, I would just go through life spinning my wheels. At some point one must take a leap of faith (though the distance of the chasm leapt may vary) and commit to something. From all that I've looked at, Christianity appears (whereby, I admit, "appearance" includes both intellectual and emotional appeals) the nearest to the truth.
What is your opinion on the Völuspá, the Iliad, the Qur'an, the Kitáb i-Aqdas, the Mahabharata, the Lotus Sutra, the Tao Te Ching, the Popol Vuh, the Book of Mormon, and Dianetics?
Obviously all these things are found to be wise and valuable and even divine to a large number of people. But I don't need to carefully examine each and every one of them. Every religion asserts, at its base, one of three possible schematics: only the universe exists; only God exists; or both God and the universe exist. If I have concluded that the third schematic is the true one, then I can easily dismiss (not as useless or uninteresting or immoral, but as ultimately untrue) the majority of religions and worldviews. I am left to consider the arguments for and against Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, deism, and just a handful of other beliefs. Having done so, I find Christianity the most compelling.
By any sensible metric, our society is getting more peaceful. Violent crime is down, wars are less frequent and less bloody.
Why is it then that mass shootings in America have become so common that they no longer shock us? That all the anti-bullying campaigns have not made a dent in the practice of young people employing social media to harass one another to the point of suicide? That our political system is so deadlocked by ideologues that cooperation in Congress is seen about as frequently as Bigfoot?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
I know that most people who aren't Christian, yet who live in a "post-Christian" or "Christ haunted" culture like that of America today, have at least some familiarity with the religion and could cite any number of reasons why they are not Christians themselves. Without assuming too much, I'd like to get a sampling of real-world responses to see what factors carry most weight in peoples' minds.
Some objections I have seen or could anticipate:
1. Christians have done and continue to do great evil (Crusades, Inquisition, gay bashing, etc.)
2. Christians in general don't behave any better than their irreligious counterparts, so what's the point?
3. Christians are anti-scientific and contribute to social mistrust of science (i.e. Creationists).
4. Even Christians who accept evolution are violating Occam's Razor by proposing God, Satan, angels, etc.
5. Miracles don't happen. There's no evidence.
6. Religious fundamentalism always leads to disharmony and violence; and religious belief in any capacity validates fundamentalism.
7. The classic problem of evil (an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God is allegedly not compatible with the existence of evil).
8. The doctrine of hell is abominable.
9. Christianity makes as many untestable claims as any other religion; why should it be right and they not be?
There could be many more. I'm just wondering what objections carry the most weight for you, personally? And please don't say, "All of the above." Thanks in advance for your time and thoughtfulness.
It's simply that it doesn't make sense to believe in extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Whether I like an organization or like the character the organization proposes has nothing to do with whether I believe that character exists.
Why is it then that mass shootings in America have become so common that they no longer shock us? That all the anti-bullying campaigns have not made a dent in the practice of young people employing social media to harass one another to the point of suicide? That our political system is so deadlocked by ideologues that cooperation in Congress is seen about as frequently as Bigfoot?
As opposed to when a congressman was beaten to within an inch of his life by another congressman? Yeah, I'd say things are a smidge better.
By the way, about the "Something must have caused the Big Bang, therefore we need a god" is just a restatement of the ancient "Something must cause Lightning, therefore we need a god."
Back there and back then, we had no understanding that lightning or volcanoes could have reasonable natural causes. The same goes for how life could possibly have come about in all its varieties through natural causes. As our understanding progresses, we have so far found out that the problem was not that there was no natural process but rather that we didn't know about the natural process yet.
Just because we don't know what natural processes did, or maybe even could have, caused the Big Bang (or if a cause is even required) - does not mean we need to go "therefore, we need a god".
"
I'd also recommend checking out Lawrence Kraus' "A Universe From Nothing". It's a great talk about how the universe actually could have shown up from natural causes, no supernatural entity required. It's possible that within a decade or two, maybe sooner, the origins of the universe will take their place along with "how do volcanoes erupt" and "how does milk spoil" in our list of examples we once had no answer for and now seem well understood as part of natural processes.
A threat doesn't have to involve action on the part of one making it
Actually it does. That's what separates a threat from a warning.
And this is morally wrong because it involves you behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else.
Now then, considering a hypothetical man who really does despise his family, yet stays with them out of fear of punishment, and does so in such a way that they suspect his true feelings only obliquely, if at all -- how is that contrary to their interests?
How is it contrary to the best interests of a wife and her children to have a relationship built on a lie with a man who despises them and does not care about them at all? Can you truly think of no reason that might be a problematic situation?
He is providing for them; they would not have his provision if he left.
They would if he provided it to them. One can provide financially for a person without being married to them. One can provide for children without being a part of their lives. Indeed, this is the whole point of things like child support.
His presence creates stability; his departure could throw things into chaos.
You're denying the reality of the situation. You're acting like this situation is fine, and that his departure would cause problems. No, this is already a broken home and a relationship built on lies. The fact that there isn't open acknowledgment of the problems does not mean there aren't any.
Do you not suppose that the wife and children would adamantly maintain that it is in their best interests to have a husband and father, even if he acts sometimes melancholy and agitated, than to not have one at all?
No, that's not the situation. The husband may be sometimes melancholy and agitated, but the whole point of this situation is that the husband wants to leave his wife and kids behind. To the point where he despises them, and would leave without question. It is only the threat of destruction and damnation that keeps him from doing so, not the desires of his own heart.
I don't know what they would say. That's kind of the point though, isn't it? It's what THEY would say. Even if they were going to adamantly insist that the husband/father stay, that's THEIR choice to make. Not the husband/father's. The husband/father owes them the truth. To for him to claim "oh, well, they would want me to stay anyway, so I'm just going to keep lying to them" is denial.
Do you believe that morality is or ought to be devoid of any utilitarian considerations?
I am certainly considering the utilitarian perspective. Which is better, maintaining the selfish lies of one person, or for a family to recognize the truth about their situation?
It could very much be to the best interests of those in heaven to not have unrepentant murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers, gangbangers and other scoundrels running loose among them, trying to perpetuate their disastrous life choices out into eternity.
How could they possibly perpetuate their life choices? They're dead.
I can hold up two crayons of the exact same color, one labeled "purple" and the other labeled "violet," and affirm that there is a difference between purple and violet. That doesn't make my statement true or meaningful.
Actually, your statement is both those things. (Purple is a different color from violet.)
I have to wonder, if eternal torture doesn't qualify as not-loving, not-compassionate or not-merciful... What possibly could qualify as not-loving or not-compassionate or not-merciful to those people being tortured forever?
Highroller, let's take a step back from the whole "dysfunctional family" paradigm and approach the question more generally. It seems to me that you are saying a person cannot be acting morally in doing [X], no matter how ostensibly good [X] appears to be, if he is lying about his motives. Would you agree with that?
Quote from Highroller » »
Actually, your statement is both those things.
How? It's just semantics!
I'll pose it yet another way. Suppose an art teacher tells her students, "I know you don't all have the same artistic ability; that's not what I'm grading you on. I just want to see your best effort. If I can see that you've put time and care into your work, that'll get you a good grade." So she is affirming that there is a distinction between hard work and careless work, between diligence and laziness. But the proof -- not even of the distinction, but of the affirmation -- must be seen in the grades she gives.
If student 1 spends hours creating a very elaborate picture, and student 2 smears a single brown line of paint across the canvas and calls it done, and the teacher gives both of them A's, she has very clearly demonstrated that she sees no difference between effort and sloth. So her affirmation is a lie. How is this any different from a God who affirms a distinction between good and evil, yet treats all deeds and all lives equally?
I have to wonder, if eternal torture doesn't qualify as not-loving, not-compassionate or not-merciful... What possibly could qualify as not-loving or not-compassionate or not-merciful to those people being tortured forever?
Can we allow that maybe "torture" is not the right word here? That perhaps hell is not hell from the view of the damned, but from the view of heaven? That possibly the inhabitants of hell are "kind of okay," with their circumstances, just as they were "kind of okay" creeping through life hurting, robbing, mocking and killing their fellow people?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
If you define Hell as, "The full service country club that is for all the nonbelievers" - I certainly wouldn't mind it as long as I get to frequently see my Christian friends too. And if it doesn't split up families, such as if a husband is a believer and a wife isn't. But at that point, it kind of starts folding in on itself as a concept.
I'm not trying to set up a straw man or anything. If you're saying that the afterlife for nonbelievers, or sinners, doesn't involve any kind of torment and is pretty darn okay - that's a different ballgame.
I'm guessing then that you don't consider eternal torture to count as infinitely merciful and infinitely kind and infinitely loving then.
I'm guessing then that you don't consider eternal torture to count as infinitely merciful and infinitely kind and infinitely loving then.
No. Torture in the active sense is done either for coercion or to satisfy a sadistic desire, neither of which squares with God's character. But someone can experience something as "being torturous" even if it is something they've engaged of their own free will, with no one forcing it upon them. In that case ignorance and especially willful ignorance will often play a factor; and I suspect hell is a place where willful ignorance is quite widespread, particularly in the form of lacking empathy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Hell isn't exactly what people think it is. It's not eternal torture or suffering in the way that we could understand it. Hell is to be utterly and completely without the presence of God. In Revelations it's said that when you're judged if you go to Hell that your name is stricken from the book of life and God will not know you anymore. The whole "lake of fire" thing is how it's supposed to feel when you're without God in your life or in this case afterlife.
Highroller, let's take a step back from the whole "dysfunctional family" paradigm and approach the question more generally. It seems to me that you are saying a person cannot be acting morally in doing [X], no matter how ostensibly good [X] appears to be, if he is lying about his motives. Would you agree with that?
No, because the husband is doing [X] out of entirely selfish reasons that harm his family.
And to be clear, X is not "financially supporting the family." That's a good thing. X is "lying about the fact that the person has every desire to leave the family because he doesn't love them."
You are trying to argue that the husband financially supporting the family somehow means the husband is not wrong for lying. This is fallacious. One can financially support a family and not lie to them. Lying to a family is wrong. Lying to a family about not loving them and wanting to leave them is wrong.
Notably, you don't seem to want to acknowledge that the husband could be honest with his family and still financially provide for them. You're linking the two, as though one cannot happen without the other, as though somehow the financial support were contingent on the husband's continued lying. All of these statements are false. You're just trying to rationalize the husband's immoral lying to his family because you refuse to admit that he is wrong for doing so.
This is what I mean by "mental gymnastics," Pandas. You can't accept a truth because it's threatening to you, and so you go into denial, and thus twist around your thoughts to make the conclusion you want come out. The arguments don't make sense, but of course they don't, because you're not trying to have a logical argument, you're trying to avoid accepting the truth any way that you can.
Look at what you're arguing. You're trying to argue that the husband in this relationship is behaving out of love because "love" to you means, "really wanting to leave his wife but not doing so only because he's terrified that he'll face torture if he does."
If I say I love my job, and what I mean is, "I really want to leave my job, but I don't only because I'll be tortured if I do," do I love my job? If I say, "I love my country," and what I mean is, "I really want to leave this country, but I don't only because I'll be tortured if I do," do I love my country?
No. So how can you argue the husband loves his wife?
Indeed, if the husband did actually love his wife, he'd be honest about everything and go seek counseling. That would be putting the marriage above his own needs. The self-centered thing would be to continue lying.
Quote from Highroller » »
How? It's just semantics!
No, violet and purple actually are two different colors. And right and wrong are not even close to the same thing.
I'll pose it yet another way. Suppose an art teacher tells her students, "I know you don't all have the same artistic ability; that's not what I'm grading you on. I just want to see your best effort. If I can see that you've put time and care into your work, that'll get you a good grade." So she is affirming that there is a distinction between hard work and careless work, between diligence and laziness. But the proof -- not even of the distinction, but of the affirmation -- must be seen in the grades she gives.
Yeah, but that's not analogous to what we're talking about.
We seem to be back to ethics requiring special rewards and punishments, which we've already been over.
If student 1 spends hours creating a very elaborate picture, and student 2 smears a single brown line of paint across the canvas and calls it done, and the teacher gives both of them A's, she has very clearly demonstrated that she sees no difference between effort and sloth.
No, she can see it. She just gives them the same grade.
I have to wonder, if eternal torture doesn't qualify as not-loving, not-compassionate or not-merciful... What possibly could qualify as not-loving or not-compassionate or not-merciful to those people being tortured forever?
Can we allow that maybe "torture" is not the right word here?
I cannot think of a word more appropriate for hell than "torture," no.
That perhaps hell is not hell from the view of the damned, but from the view of heaven? That possibly the inhabitants of hell are "kind of okay," with their circumstances, just as they were "kind of okay" creeping through life hurting, robbing, mocking and killing their fellow people?
If they're kind of ok with hell, then exactly how is hell a punishment?
Obviously all these things are found to be wise and valuable and even divine to a large number of people. But I don't need to carefully examine each and every one of them.
Then how can you insist that people not dismiss the Bible?
Why is it then that mass shootings in America have become so common that they no longer shock us?
Okay, want to know something shocking? Mass shootings occur less often than lightning strike fatalities. They are tragic to those who experience them, of course, and they dominate the 24-hour news networks. But they are absolutely not representative of violent crime in this country; they are aberrant, freak events. Take CNN at face value, and you're gonna get a warped picture of the world.
That all the anti-bullying campaigns have not made a dent in the practice of young people employing social media to harass one another to the point of suicide?
No, youth suicides are down too. Again, the problem is that CNN is disproportionately covering "new media" bullying - you just don't hear anything about how horrible old-school bullying was.
Highroller, let's take a step back from the whole "dysfunctional family" paradigm and approach the question more generally. It seems to me that you are saying a person cannot be acting morally in doing [X], no matter how ostensibly good [X] appears to be, if he is lying about his motives. Would you agree with that?
No, because the husband is doing [X] out of entirely selfish reasons that harm his family.
What part about "let's take a step back from the whole dysfunctional family paradigm" did you not understand and/or deliberately ignore?
This is what I mean by "mental gymnastics," Pandas. You can't accept a truth because it's threatening to you, and so you go into denial, and thus twist around your thoughts to make the conclusion you want come out. The arguments don't make sense, but of course they don't, because you're not trying to have a logical argument, you're trying to avoid accepting the truth any way that you can.
Your armchair psychoanalysis is out of line. I'm willing to have this conversation be impersonal, as it ought to be in a debate forum -- not about me and not about you. Please try to honor that. If you think my reasoning is confused, you can call it confused without needing to insinuate that I feel threatened by the truth.
Look at what you're arguing. You're trying to argue that the husband in this relationship is behaving out of love because "love" to you means, "really wanting to leave his wife but not doing so only because he's terrified that he'll face torture if he does."
Absolutely untrue. Love does mean sometimes doing things you don't want to do, or even really fear or detest doing, for the sake of another. It means honoring commitments even when it no longer feels good to do so. And yes, it means being honest with the beloved; and some other things besides. Now, who do you know that has ever loved another perfectly? Who, moreover, loves in such a way that love is not at least a little commingled with fear? If a man wanted to honor his commitment to his family, and didn't want to hurt their feelings by expressing his dissatisfaction with things, and was afraid of divine censure if he failed but respected God enough to believe that such censure would be justified -- how could you say that man had not love?
Then how can you insist that people not dismiss the Bible?
I should've said, "ought not treat the Bible dismissively." I mean, if you're convinced by the arguments for pantheism generally and therefore believe that no monotheism can be true, it's fine to say, "I don't need to hear what the Bible says about God" unless or until someone undermines your faith in pantheism. But that doesn't mean you should say, "Oh, the Bible, what a stupid book written by ignorant people, total waste of time." I think it's right to treat holy scriptures with a modicum of respect -- or at least to refrain from open disdain -- simply out of consideration for the millions of people who do believe; and in the acknowledgment that no such scripture could've attained its stature by being stupid and antisocial and evil on the face of it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
@PandasRpeople2:
I think the point BS is trying to make is you've more or less said you've discarded all non-Bible holy texts after a surface assessment because you don't have time to go through them in detail. Yet, the original point of this thread was asking atheists and agnostics why they give the Bible the same treatment. I mean, I think we can all agree you shouldn't call a holy text "a stupid book written by ignorant people" and atheists and agnostics who do so are out of line. But, can you really fault others for doing something to 100% of religions that you've done to 99.9%?
Anyway, are we talking about the same Pantheism? While it's true that most atheists and agnostics are Monists, generally speaking they're Naturalist Monists, not Pantheist Monists.
(I guess many Buddhist atheists would be Pantheist Monists?)
Why are you still twisting words? Do you delight in portraying me in the worst possible way?
For in the first case you said that it was me trying to justify my self (that is, my essence, my being-ness); and I said, no, it is God who justifies -- again referring to the self. And now you turn it around to imply that I think God would justify my wrong actions, as if He would make evil be good for my sake, which is absurd. But we receive justification apart from our actions, whether wrong or right. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
As plain as that is, why do you keep trying to trip me up with your rhetorical tricks? What have I done to make you hate me?
Highroller is just using the dialectical process to increase his understanding of you and your position. He hasn't actually insulted you or demeaned you and has only presented his own arguments and questions in response to his. It seems like he's trying to trip you up because he's not really providing an answer or conclusion. When it comes to a topic like this one I'm not sure there can be a definitive "right" answer.
From the outside it looks like Highroller believes in a truly loving God who forgives and doesn't consign people to hell while PandasRpeople2 believes in a God who rewards and punishes strictly based on the laws laid out in the Bible, with maybe a little wiggle room to ignore clearly outdated concepts and rules. Highroller wants to know why the idea of punishment of sin is so important to Pandas' and such a large concept in his mind and Pandas' has yet to really answer that question.
Really? Then why have I felt no discourtesy or hostility from Crashing00, or Tiax, or any of the other atheists who have responded in this thread, but only from a Christian?
And Highroller has yet to answer how the idea of God treating Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa exactly the same in the afterlife could possibly be an expression of love (never mind justice); for to render them equivalent is to state that all their acts in this life, everything they invested in building a self-definition, does not actually matter -- and so God mocks or makes a joke of the central aspect of humanity, which He Himself has invested us with.
You've posted that (A) God would want someone to stay in a loveless relationship in which a person despises his wife and children and would leave them gladly in a moment's notice; (B) that God would punish that person with eternal hellfire if he did not stay in this relationship; and (C) that any of this is morally acceptable for either God or that person.
All three of those statements are incorrect.
You have great difficulty distinguishing statements discrediting your arguments from statements attacking you personally. This has been a recurring problem throughout this thread.
No, Pandas has answered that question. Indeed, the answer has been clear for quite some time. This is about Pandas' ego. It has nothing to do with religion or God or justifying Christianity, it has to do with justifying Pandas.
It's why he's been constantly evasive, it's why he's doing logical somersaults; it's why, when pointed out that he's arguing something logically untenable, he'll say, "No, I'm not arguing that," and then later on will argue exactly that in the exact same post. Pandas has made this debate personal and thus is unable to participate in thread objectively, because he views any counterargument as threatening to his own person. This results in him performing these "mental gymnastics," because his ego needs to protect itself.
If you'll look in the URL I posted, Pandas has even gone so far as to make a threat to my person, saying if I convince him what he is saying is logically unsound, he will proceed to do immoral things, and moreover it will be my fault he did them. It's important to note that he's also arguing against a strawman, as I have stated outright that the lack of a hell does not mean a moral vacuum, and do believe that God affirms the difference between right and wrong.
You can't expect a rational argument from Pandas, because he's convinced himself he's right from the start, and has made this debate personal. Thus, the idea that he might be wrong becomes a thought he finds threatening on a deeply personal level. I've tried asking him to back away from making this debate personal, but as you can see, he's resisting that.
Words straight out of your mouth: I love false dichotomies, I want people to suffer, I'm in denial, I'm morally unconscionable, I'm hypocritical -- and I'm a dick.
Oh, and yet I'm the one who's making this personal?
And you're still evading! You still will not directly (or even indirectly!) answer the question I repeated, for at least the third time, in my reply to Bitsy! Why don't you man up and do that, Highroller, instead of typing another mini-essay about everything that's wrong with me?
To be clear, I said you were advocating something morally unconscionable, which you were.
Yes, you are. All of the statements that you quoted are correct, and none of those — with the exception of the dick part — are in any way inappropriate in an intellectual discussion.
They're objective statements about your arguments. You have repeatedly made false dichotomies, you admitted to wanting people to suffer, you have demonstrated you are in denial, you have advocated something morally unconscionable, and you have been demonstrated to be hypocritical.
Once again, you are incapable of distinguishing between someone saying that your arguments are fallacious and someone attacking you personally.
I have done that already. Why repeat an argument I've already made, especially when you aren't even going to listen to it, and when I've touched upon it in my response to Bitsy?
(A) God would often have us do things that are unpleasant or even excruciating (see: the crucifixion) out of love; for love is not merely a blissful emotional state. That would be better called infatuation or lust. If a person has made a commitment to a relationship, especially to the extent that he has allowed others to become dependent on him for their well-being, then he ought to, out of love, see that relationship through. For love encompasses duty and self-sacrifice and all manner of things that do not feel good. (I never said that I was in a "loveless" marriage, and certainly not that I "despise" my family -- only that my marriage has been often emotionally taxing and disappointing; and you seem to have conflated emotional disappointment with an absence of love. But the two can and often do coexist.)
(B) I do not believe that hell is a literal place of fire. I have stated that quite clearly. I do believe that if a person makes a habit of seeking separation from his fellow humans, especially those to whom he is beholden (like family and friends), for the sake of expedience or emotional gratification, that such behavior may dispose his soul to seek separation even from God.
(C) If you are a better arbiter or interpreter than me as to what constitutes morality, please produce for me a measuring device so that I can see where I fall short.
How does God affirm the difference between right and wrong? That's what you keep dancing around. For if there really is a difference, then different consequences must follow.
The way I read it, you have life set up like a flag football game for six year-olds. Good deeds are touchdowns and evil deeds are fumbles. But since we're dealing with six year-olds and we don't want to hurt their self-esteem, no one bothers keeping score and in the end everyone wins. Even if you fumble all the time and it becomes a frustration to your teammates, and even to you -- in the end, God overrules all frustration with the affirmation that YOU ARE A WINNER!
So, again, how does God affirm the difference between right and wrong?
Also, I admit that I have been getting overly emotionally invested in this discussion. I apologize for that.
Because if you were telling the truth, that means that you aren't behaving out of love at all. You are behaving out of fear. Specifically, you are behaving out of fear of punishment, which threatens your own well-being. That is not love.
A thief can refrain from robbing someone's house out of fear of punishment, but that is not love. It's fear. The thief does not care for the person's well-being. The thief is solely concerned for his own well-being. Whereas a person who loves someone would not rob that someone's house even if there were no threat of punishment, out of the love that person bears for the other.
There is a huge difference between "I find my marriage to be emotionally taxing" and "I want to leave my wife and would act on this desire if only punishment from an external source were not a factor."
You might not have said the words "loveless marriage," but you certainly communicated such.
This does not make any sense. If hell is self-imposed, then how can God threaten hell?
And if God does not threaten hell, and you don't want to go to hell, then can't you just say, "I don't want to go to hell," and you won't be in it? You said that hell is something God apparently gives reluctantly to those who actively seek it, right? Didn't you say something along the lines of "God gives people what they want"? But you don't actively seek it. In fact, you seem pretty scared of it. So, doesn't that mean you won't go to hell by the parameters established?
As I said, if you have provided an accurate statement of your opinions of your wife and children, then you cannot possibly be said to behave in a loving manner toward them, because the only reason you're there is because you're forced to be there. You are in their lives solely because you feel your own safety is threatened. Your concern is exclusively on yourself, not on them. We see this in your repeated assertions that you would gladly leave them at a moment's notice were the threat of hell not present.
And this is morally wrong because it involves you behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else. Likewise, were we to believe that God is indeed threatening you with hell and torment or whatever, then God is also morally wrong for behaving in a manner that is entirely self-serving, while being contrary to the best interests of anyone else.
... By affirming the difference between right and wrong. That is to say, by stating or asserting that there is a difference between right and wrong. Which is what "affirming" means.
The different consequences are that one deed is right and the other deed is wrong.
Unless you're saying that there must be a punishment/reward-based system of ethics, in which case, not only does that not follow, but we've already been over this.
No, for this analogy to be correct, the good deeds would be sportsmanlike conduct and the bad deeds would be unsportsmanlike conduct.
By saying that there is a difference. That's what "affirming" means.
I mean, I appreciate the apology, that's a big step for you, but you haven't harmed anyone except yourself as far as I can tell.
What you should ask yourself is why you got so emotional over this thread in the first place. Use this as a learning opportunity.
It was not ever my intent to say that God gives people what they want, but rather that He gives them what they choose. And of course there is a world of difference between wanting and choosing. An alcoholic could dearly want to stop drinking even as he chooses to drink. A compulsive gambler wants a lot of money and yet makes choices that impoverish her. And people could want heaven while routinely make choices that point them towards hell.
That was not accurate, and I regret bringing it up. Even if it were accurate, I forgot that in debate one ought always to pose actuals as hypotheticals; I've been very out of practice.
Now then, considering a hypothetical man who really does despise his family, yet stays with them out of fear of punishment, and does so in such a way that they suspect his true feelings only obliquely, if at all -- how is that contrary to their interests? He is providing for them; they would not have his provision if he left. His presence creates stability; his departure could throw things into chaos. Do you not suppose that the wife and children would adamantly maintain that it is in their best interests to have a husband and father, even if he acts sometimes melancholy and agitated, than to not have one at all?
Do you believe that morality is or ought to be devoid of any utilitarian considerations?
It could very much be to the best interests of those in heaven to not have unrepentant murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers, gangbangers and other scoundrels running loose among them, trying to perpetuate their disastrous life choices out into eternity.
I can hold up two crayons of the exact same color, one labeled "purple" and the other labeled "violet," and affirm that there is a difference between purple and violet. That doesn't make my statement true or meaningful.
I might have misread you, and I guess I did based on what you say later. However, I wouldn't say Paul's stance on homosexuality is constant with love and tolerance. To me, it seems the only reason you'd be trying to justify what he said about homosexuals in the spirit of the Gospels is because you feel he had a pipeline to God. If you felt he was just a guy ahead of his time, you'd not even worry about the stuff he said that is clearly incorrect. However, I acknowledge that I could be far off-base with this inference.
I'm not--by profession--a moralist. So my own original content on the subject might not be worth reading. However, there are others who have been working rather hard in that direction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_morality
My mistake. I must have been going of earlier threads you've made on the subject. I was unaware your opinion had evolved on this matter. I guess I'll need to reread and see how this new insight of yours jives with the old.
And I feel this is a leap backwards when your trying to look critically at what is said and move forwards with it. If we thought Newton was an aspect of the Creator, then the work he did on alchemy would have a different connotation. In that case, Newton might have held science back as much--if not more--then he brought it forward.
By any sensible metric, our society is getting more peaceful. Violent crime is down, wars are less frequent and less bloody.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Obviously all these things are found to be wise and valuable and even divine to a large number of people. But I don't need to carefully examine each and every one of them. Every religion asserts, at its base, one of three possible schematics: only the universe exists; only God exists; or both God and the universe exist. If I have concluded that the third schematic is the true one, then I can easily dismiss (not as useless or uninteresting or immoral, but as ultimately untrue) the majority of religions and worldviews. I am left to consider the arguments for and against Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, deism, and just a handful of other beliefs. Having done so, I find Christianity the most compelling.
Why is it then that mass shootings in America have become so common that they no longer shock us? That all the anti-bullying campaigns have not made a dent in the practice of young people employing social media to harass one another to the point of suicide? That our political system is so deadlocked by ideologues that cooperation in Congress is seen about as frequently as Bigfoot?
It's simply that it doesn't make sense to believe in extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Whether I like an organization or like the character the organization proposes has nothing to do with whether I believe that character exists.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
As opposed to when a congressman was beaten to within an inch of his life by another congressman? Yeah, I'd say things are a smidge better.
Back there and back then, we had no understanding that lightning or volcanoes could have reasonable natural causes. The same goes for how life could possibly have come about in all its varieties through natural causes. As our understanding progresses, we have so far found out that the problem was not that there was no natural process but rather that we didn't know about the natural process yet.
Just because we don't know what natural processes did, or maybe even could have, caused the Big Bang (or if a cause is even required) - does not mean we need to go "therefore, we need a god".
"
I'd also recommend checking out Lawrence Kraus' "A Universe From Nothing". It's a great talk about how the universe actually could have shown up from natural causes, no supernatural entity required. It's possible that within a decade or two, maybe sooner, the origins of the universe will take their place along with "how do volcanoes erupt" and "how does milk spoil" in our list of examples we once had no answer for and now seem well understood as part of natural processes.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
How is it contrary to the best interests of a wife and her children to have a relationship built on a lie with a man who despises them and does not care about them at all? Can you truly think of no reason that might be a problematic situation?
They would if he provided it to them. One can provide financially for a person without being married to them. One can provide for children without being a part of their lives. Indeed, this is the whole point of things like child support.
You're denying the reality of the situation. You're acting like this situation is fine, and that his departure would cause problems. No, this is already a broken home and a relationship built on lies. The fact that there isn't open acknowledgment of the problems does not mean there aren't any.
No, that's not the situation. The husband may be sometimes melancholy and agitated, but the whole point of this situation is that the husband wants to leave his wife and kids behind. To the point where he despises them, and would leave without question. It is only the threat of destruction and damnation that keeps him from doing so, not the desires of his own heart.
I don't know what they would say. That's kind of the point though, isn't it? It's what THEY would say. Even if they were going to adamantly insist that the husband/father stay, that's THEIR choice to make. Not the husband/father's. The husband/father owes them the truth. To for him to claim "oh, well, they would want me to stay anyway, so I'm just going to keep lying to them" is denial.
I am certainly considering the utilitarian perspective. Which is better, maintaining the selfish lies of one person, or for a family to recognize the truth about their situation?
How could they possibly perpetuate their life choices? They're dead.
Actually, your statement is both those things. (Purple is a different color from violet.)
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
How? It's just semantics!
I'll pose it yet another way. Suppose an art teacher tells her students, "I know you don't all have the same artistic ability; that's not what I'm grading you on. I just want to see your best effort. If I can see that you've put time and care into your work, that'll get you a good grade." So she is affirming that there is a distinction between hard work and careless work, between diligence and laziness. But the proof -- not even of the distinction, but of the affirmation -- must be seen in the grades she gives.
If student 1 spends hours creating a very elaborate picture, and student 2 smears a single brown line of paint across the canvas and calls it done, and the teacher gives both of them A's, she has very clearly demonstrated that she sees no difference between effort and sloth. So her affirmation is a lie. How is this any different from a God who affirms a distinction between good and evil, yet treats all deeds and all lives equally?
Can we allow that maybe "torture" is not the right word here? That perhaps hell is not hell from the view of the damned, but from the view of heaven? That possibly the inhabitants of hell are "kind of okay," with their circumstances, just as they were "kind of okay" creeping through life hurting, robbing, mocking and killing their fellow people?
I'm not trying to set up a straw man or anything. If you're saying that the afterlife for nonbelievers, or sinners, doesn't involve any kind of torment and is pretty darn okay - that's a different ballgame.
I'm guessing then that you don't consider eternal torture to count as infinitely merciful and infinitely kind and infinitely loving then.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
And to be clear, X is not "financially supporting the family." That's a good thing. X is "lying about the fact that the person has every desire to leave the family because he doesn't love them."
You are trying to argue that the husband financially supporting the family somehow means the husband is not wrong for lying. This is fallacious. One can financially support a family and not lie to them. Lying to a family is wrong. Lying to a family about not loving them and wanting to leave them is wrong.
Notably, you don't seem to want to acknowledge that the husband could be honest with his family and still financially provide for them. You're linking the two, as though one cannot happen without the other, as though somehow the financial support were contingent on the husband's continued lying. All of these statements are false. You're just trying to rationalize the husband's immoral lying to his family because you refuse to admit that he is wrong for doing so.
This is what I mean by "mental gymnastics," Pandas. You can't accept a truth because it's threatening to you, and so you go into denial, and thus twist around your thoughts to make the conclusion you want come out. The arguments don't make sense, but of course they don't, because you're not trying to have a logical argument, you're trying to avoid accepting the truth any way that you can.
Look at what you're arguing. You're trying to argue that the husband in this relationship is behaving out of love because "love" to you means, "really wanting to leave his wife but not doing so only because he's terrified that he'll face torture if he does."
If I say I love my job, and what I mean is, "I really want to leave my job, but I don't only because I'll be tortured if I do," do I love my job? If I say, "I love my country," and what I mean is, "I really want to leave this country, but I don't only because I'll be tortured if I do," do I love my country?
No. So how can you argue the husband loves his wife?
Indeed, if the husband did actually love his wife, he'd be honest about everything and go seek counseling. That would be putting the marriage above his own needs. The self-centered thing would be to continue lying.
No, violet and purple actually are two different colors. And right and wrong are not even close to the same thing.
Yeah, but that's not analogous to what we're talking about.
We seem to be back to ethics requiring special rewards and punishments, which we've already been over.
No, she can see it. She just gives them the same grade.
No it's not.
I cannot think of a word more appropriate for hell than "torture," no.
If they're kind of ok with hell, then exactly how is hell a punishment?
Okay, want to know something shocking? Mass shootings occur less often than lightning strike fatalities. They are tragic to those who experience them, of course, and they dominate the 24-hour news networks. But they are absolutely not representative of violent crime in this country; they are aberrant, freak events. Take CNN at face value, and you're gonna get a warped picture of the world.
No, youth suicides are down too. Again, the problem is that CNN is disproportionately covering "new media" bullying - you just don't hear anything about how horrible old-school bullying was.
Okay, this one actually is borne out by the numbers. Not exactly violence, though.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Your armchair psychoanalysis is out of line. I'm willing to have this conversation be impersonal, as it ought to be in a debate forum -- not about me and not about you. Please try to honor that. If you think my reasoning is confused, you can call it confused without needing to insinuate that I feel threatened by the truth.
Absolutely untrue. Love does mean sometimes doing things you don't want to do, or even really fear or detest doing, for the sake of another. It means honoring commitments even when it no longer feels good to do so. And yes, it means being honest with the beloved; and some other things besides. Now, who do you know that has ever loved another perfectly? Who, moreover, loves in such a way that love is not at least a little commingled with fear? If a man wanted to honor his commitment to his family, and didn't want to hurt their feelings by expressing his dissatisfaction with things, and was afraid of divine censure if he failed but respected God enough to believe that such censure would be justified -- how could you say that man had not love?
Flawed love, yes; but so have we all.
I should've said, "ought not treat the Bible dismissively." I mean, if you're convinced by the arguments for pantheism generally and therefore believe that no monotheism can be true, it's fine to say, "I don't need to hear what the Bible says about God" unless or until someone undermines your faith in pantheism. But that doesn't mean you should say, "Oh, the Bible, what a stupid book written by ignorant people, total waste of time." I think it's right to treat holy scriptures with a modicum of respect -- or at least to refrain from open disdain -- simply out of consideration for the millions of people who do believe; and in the acknowledgment that no such scripture could've attained its stature by being stupid and antisocial and evil on the face of it.
I think the point BS is trying to make is you've more or less said you've discarded all non-Bible holy texts after a surface assessment because you don't have time to go through them in detail. Yet, the original point of this thread was asking atheists and agnostics why they give the Bible the same treatment. I mean, I think we can all agree you shouldn't call a holy text "a stupid book written by ignorant people" and atheists and agnostics who do so are out of line. But, can you really fault others for doing something to 100% of religions that you've done to 99.9%?
Anyway, are we talking about the same Pantheism? While it's true that most atheists and agnostics are Monists, generally speaking they're Naturalist Monists, not Pantheist Monists.
(I guess many Buddhist atheists would be Pantheist Monists?)