The Illogicality of Jehovah's Witnesses

[Randall_Adams]

You have zero evidence ever what the weather will be tomorrow, you only have predictions. Those predictions can only ever be based on past events, but that is not evidence of what will happen.

You don't know what evidence is. That is evidence, but it's not proof. The snow storm going on right now is evidence that it will not be 100 degrees tomorrow. Or whatever degrees makes sense in celsius.

 

[Lacius]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're defining what moral means, wouldn't that make it subjective?

All words have to be defined. That's how language works.

You're right, however, that there's no objective reason to care about whatever it is we define morality as. That part is subjective. Once we decide morality is about well being though, whether or not something is moral is objective.

Also, evidence =/= proof.

It doesn't always equal proof, but it can.

 

[Randall_Adams]

All words have to be defined. That's how language works.

You're right, however, that there's no objective reason to care about whatever it is we define morality as. That part is subjective. Once we decide morality is about well being though, whether or not something is moral is objective.

It doesn't always equal proof, but it can.

All words have to be defined, sure, but that doesn't escape them from being subjective. Understanding what people mean when they use the word "moral" and understanding what actually is or isn't moral are two different things. I can understand what somebody means when they say somethng is or isn't moral even if neither of us have definitive ideas about what things are moral or not.

Is an objective thing based on a subjective thing not then ultimately subjective itself? It would be subjectively objective, so yeah in some sense it's objective, and in some sense it's not. -- I guess this line is just food for thought lol. I'm not trying to be semantic, so no need to reply to this statement I think.

You would still be subjectively deciding what is better for someone's well being though. That's what I'm saying.

Like the covid vaccine. Is it better for my well being to get it right now, or not?

Technically if it's proof, it's not evidence.. it's proof. Calling it evidence would mean it doesn't hold the power to prove anything.

 

[Lacius]

All words have to be defined, sure, but that doesn't escape them from being subjective. Understanding what people mean when they use the word "moral" and understanding what actually is or isn't moral are two different things. I can understand what somebody means when they say somethng is or isn't moral even if neither of us have definitive ideas about what things are moral or not.

Is an objective thing based on a subjective thing not then ultimately subjective itself? It would be subjectively objective, so yeah in some sense it's objective, and in some sense it's not. -- I guess this line is just food for thought lol. I'm not trying to be semantic, so no need to reply to this statement I think.

You would still be subjectively deciding what is better for someone's well being though. That's what I'm saying.

Whether or not we care about well being is technically subjective, but if that's what we decide we care about (and just about everybody on the planet cares about well being), then we can make objective evidence-based assessments about what is or isn't conducive to well being.

Secular morality is superior to any other proclaimed moral system.

You would still be subjectively deciding what is better for someone's well being though. That's what I'm saying.

I'm not saying the answers are always clear, but there is always an objective right or wrong answer about whether or not something is conducive to one's well being.

It's only whether or not we care about a person's well being that's technically subjective, but that isn't a problem. Just about everyone on Earth cares about their own well being. Even if they're an asshole who doesn't care about other humans, it is in the best interest of that asshole's well being to (for example) not murder people and to surround oneself with like-minded individuals who also aren't going to murder people.

Like the covid vaccine. Is it better for my well being to get it right now, or not?

Assuming there isn't a medical reason for why one shouldn't be vaccinated, it's in the interest of that person's well being to get vaccinated. It's also in the interest of the well being of everyone around that person that they get vaccinated. That second part creates a moral imperative to get vaccinated, objectively.

Technically if it's proof, it's not evidence.. it's proof. Calling it evidence would mean it doesn't hold the power to prove anything.

Proof is a subsection of evidence. Not all evidence is proof, but all proof is evidence.

 

[Randall_Adams]

It sounds like if we were talking in person we'd realize we feel the same way about this for the most part.

Assuming there isn't a medical reason for why one shouldn't be vaccinated, it's in the interest of that person's well being to get vaccinated. It's also in the interest of the well being of everyone around that person that they get vaccinated. That second part creates a moral imperative to get vaccinated, objectively.

Now that part I would have to argue is subjective, as some people are suffering strokes and heart attacks as a result of getting the vaccine. With that in mind, believing it is a moral imperative for one to take an action that puts them in danger in order to reduce the danger others might be put in, blatantly goes against the idea that morality is about well being. That would be hypocritical. My point is that at least in some cases there is no objectively moral decision.

Carrying on with the covid vaccine argument, younger and/or healthier people (and I don't mean babies lol, like young adults I guess?) are more likely to suffer no long term effects from covid, and while their risk of a heart attack or stroke from the vaccine is probably less too, having a heart attack or a stroke will likely be much more severe for them than getting covid. So for them it's more like risking death or serious injury in order to reduce, not even prevent, injury. More or less.

But yeah, not trying to make this a covid debate haha.

So really my opinion is if someone thinks there is always a moral choice for every predicament, then I disagree. I would think that people who agree that morality is about well being, but still disagree about a particular action being moral or not would mean that morality is subjective. Which is fine with me lol, even if morality being about well being is subjective, I'm still okay going with it being about well being.

And yes, I do agree that secular morality is the best system/form of morality we've yet to create.

 

[Lacius]

Now that part I would have to argue is subjective, as some people are suffering strokes and heart attacks as a result of getting the vaccine.

There is no evidence for this. This is just conspiracy theory bullshit.

My point is that at least in some cases there is no objectively moral decision.

There's always an objectively right or wrong answer once we've made it about well being. I didn't say, however, that the answers were always easy. The good news though is the question of whether or not there's a moral imperative to get the COVID-19 vaccine is an easy one: There is one. The vaccine has been demonstrated to be safe and effective, and it protects yourself as well as others around you.

Carrying on with the covid vaccine argument, younger and/or healthier people (and I don't mean babies lol, like young adults I guess?) are more likely to suffer no long term effects from covid, and while their risk of a heart attack or stroke from the vaccine is probably less too, having a heart attack or a stroke will likely be much more severe for them than getting covid. So for them it's more like risking death or serious injury in order to reduce, not even prevent, injury. More or less.

One's odds of suffering severe health effects or death related to COVID-19 are significantly higher when unvaccinated, regardless of whether or not they're "young and/or healthy," and there's no significant risk of serious side effects from the vaccine.

But yeah, not trying to make this a covid debate haha.

It's too late for that.

So really my opinion is if someone thinks there is always a moral choice for every predicament, then I disagree. I would think that people who agree that morality is about well being, but still disagree about a particular action being moral or not would mean that morality is subjective.

If two parties are in disagreement about whether or not X is conducive to well being, one of them is objectively wrong, and that is always the case. There is no way around that.

 

[Randall_Adams]

stuff

eh, here

Since April 2021, increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), particularly in adolescents and young adults. There has not been a similar reporting pattern observed after receipt of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine (Johnson & Johnson).

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/myocarditis.html

CDC has also identified nine deaths that have been caused by or were directly attributed to TTS following J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccination.
...
A review of reports indicates a causal relationship between the J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine and TTS.
...
Continued monitoring has identified nine deaths causally associated with J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccination.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

but yeah, fuck the cdc and all their crackpot conspiracy theories

 

[Lacius]

eh, here


https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/myocarditis.html


https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

but yeah, fuck the cdc and all their crackpot conspiracy theories

1. Myocarditis is not "stroke and heart attack."
2. It's an exceedingly rare side effect, orders of magnitude more rare than the odds of contracting COVID-19 and suffering severe effects from it (even when young and healthy).
3. As far as I can tell, no one has died from it.

 

[Randall_Adams]

3. As far as I can tell, no one has died from it.

Continued monitoring has identified nine deaths causally associated with J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccination.

 

[Lacius]

@Randall_Adams The J&J deaths have nothing to do with the exceedingly rare myocarditis from mRNA vaccines that we're discussing. Are you disingenuous, or just stupid?

The J&J side effects and deaths are also exceedingly rare (far more rare than the risks associated with contracting COVID-19, regardless of age and health). The deaths were also predominantly from a time before there was monitoring for specific side effects, so they've been mitigated against.

 

[september796]

Any reason you have to exclude God from requiring a cause or a beginning can be applied to the universe or the natural processes that hypothetically caused the universe.

This is repetitive. The way the scriptures define God is not comparable to the universe nor to any physical process when talking about the laws that rule them.

"God is infinite." Okay, what does that even mean? Does that mean he has existed for an infinite amount of time in the past? There has also been no demonstration that anything exists that has existed for an infinite amount of time in the past. That's also problematic in exactly the same way infinite regress is.

God is eternal, that means he has no beginning nor end. Furthermore, he is described as omnipresent, omniscient, etc; 'everything was made by him and nothing could have ever existed without him'. He is reason itself (the greek word logos means a few more things, from which the word logic or the suffix -logy derives, by the way). I mean it's not problematic in the same way, because to begin with we don't have principles for whatever that happens beyond our physical dimension. Science (whose element of experimentation is matter) can't mess with the abstract: let's say how fortune-tellers do their trick, those rituals to contact the dead, that sort of things are not explainable in that way.

If we imagine for a second that backwards time travel is possible, let's pretend that in the middle of our conversation, I get shot by a mystery assailant. You would obviously be wracked with grief, because I'm awesome, so you grab a gun and use your time machine to go back in time and save my life. You arrive in the past to kill my assailant before they kill me, but you stumble over a rock, and you accidentally fire your gun. The bullet hits and kills me, which is why you decide to go back in time with a gun in the first place. Your future self was my assailant the whole time.

You would dissapear from your family picture haha... Still I've a question (maybe offtopic):

(1)Is the assailant from the past the same assailant from present, meaning that if I kill him he would just vanish from present?
(2)Why would I become your assailant in that case you narrated?

This is one of many options you haven't eliminated, yet you're irrationally and (forgive me) stupidly jumping to the conclusion that a god must have done it. Even if you were to eliminate the possibility that the universe in the future caused itself in the past, and even if you eliminated every other possibility we could think of, that does not demonstrate that a god exists or did anything.

I don't have to eliminate anything because my conclusion is just another possibility. Actually I may consider these theories too, as long as they're coherent, since they may be compatible with the existence of god after all.

We could find a dead body in the forest, and even if we eliminated literally every possible cause of death, that doesn't mean we're rational in believing magical pixies did it.

If we eliminated literally every possible cause of death, then it's not really a dead body. On the contrary, if it's really a dead body, then we didn't eliminate every possible cause of death.

And that's the point, isn't it? If we don't know, then nobody is in any position to accept any of the premises commonly found in the first-cause arguments.

That's perfectly understandable. My point is that this position or the other have a rational basis for accepting their possibilities. In the case of god there's a bit of a step further for all the ontological reasons, our spirituality, the way in which nature or the functioning of everything, all of that has brought us closer to this idea of god throughout our history, in anywhere and at any time, etc.

It might be the universe is eternal. It might be the universe isn't eternal, but it doesn't have a cause.

is it just me or are you making a claim here?

It 100% means it's illogical. The word literally means "to lack sound reasoning."

In context what I said was that possibilities aren't per se illogical.

That's most of what you've been doing up until this point. I'm glad you've changed your mind.

If any, I'm defending the reasoning that's behind it or any other. The first cause argument is just the one I happen to know the most, that's all. It's like you with the theories you like, that's how much I care defending it.

We don't accept claims as true or likely true just because they haven't been disproven. If that's what we did, you would have to be believe all sorts of untrue and contradictory things.

"Haven't been disproved" isn't the same as untrue or contradictory. Don't you accept claims as likely true just because they haven't been disproved? I thought you did.

The Bible is repeatedly clear that it should be believed blindly. It wholeheartedly rejects and even condemns skepticism.

It depends on what specific topic you're referring to. I get that you like just one definition of faith, it's okay. Jesus used that word but in fact he proved to the people around that he had authority over the laws of nature, that nature obeyed him, that he could perform miracles and things like that.

Explanation of what? Examples of what? But, most importantly, does it include evidence for why anything in the Bible should be believed or taken seriously?

When Moses wrote the laws, they were explained in detail under different circumstances in his writings. e.g under what circumstances killing is condemned.
Now, evidence to believe what the bible says? Tradition aside, I think our only recourse is historical, but given how old the books are I'm afraid there are only bits of evidence here and there. I mean there are characters that were documented outside of religious writings that match the time period and stuff, archaeological discoveries, there are old prophecies whose predictions came true, there are some on Jesus himself as well, that sort of evidence.

The kitchen knife doesn't prescribe or command immoral actions. In fact, it doesn't say or prescribe anything. The knife is amoral, but the Bible is immoral. There's a big difference, and your analogy here is incredibly inapplicable.

The bible was out of the comparison though. That was not the point.

Slavery, for starters.

The term slavery is wide in the bible context, the original word is used to describe different things; the translation often just use the word slave. The teachings about slavery in our times are biased and have a burden of negative connotations because yeah it's been generally cruel, especially in 19th/20th centuries; the first things that we picture are shackles, chains, lashes and very oppresive lords. But in the past, slavery was kind of a "protection system" (please note the quotes) for the poor.
I'll give some examples as I'm pretty sure this will continue to be misunderstood.
People who for whatever reason -a fire for instance- lose all their possessions, or people that otherwise were very miserable, for the most part such as orphans, widows, sick people, etc. could "sell themselves" as slaves. God established laws for slavery in that time. Particularly, the slave had to work for 7 years, then his lord had to free them and give them a 'payment' (animals and whatnot) so he could become independent. It gives details in case the slave had a family, etc. The bible condemns those lords who arbitrarily mistreated their slaves, and also the slaves who cunningly took advantage of and betrayed their lords.
A second case is when for whatever reasons you are guilty for the dispossession of somebody else. In the past there were not such a thing as credit, so you had to repay the exact thing, however if you could not repay, then you had to become his slave (work for him) until you could compensate the debt.
There were other forms of slavery. The point is that the bible is against the type of slavery that is universally understand as bad. In fact Yahweh itself freed the people from slavery (the oppresive type of slavery) in Egypt.

I completely 100% agree with you, but there's no evidence that a god exists, and even if there were, it wouldn't justify anti-humanistic behaviors.

If we take god out of the picture in the bible context, you get nothing. Everything would become subjective; if we replace him with a human (a captain, a king, etc) we would think that he's doing all he does for his own benefit. But given that God existence is canon then the anti-humanistic thing that you call is justified and explained.

You were apparently arguing that seemingly organized things must be caused by intelligent minds, but that hasn't been demonstrated to be true, and there's apparently plenty of evidence disproving it.

What's the evidence disproving it?

Once we define what it means for something to be moral, then we can discern objectively right or wrong answers about whether or not something is moral. Consensus and authority have nothing to do with it. Morality based on a consensus and/or authority is purely subjective.

If we consider morality to be that which is conducive to well being, for example, then we can say objectively whether or not a particular action is conducive to well being.

The key is 'we'. Who?
Who is gonna define what it means for something to be moral?
If consensus leads to subjective morals, how can we establish objective morals for everyone?

 

[Lacius]

This is repetitive. The way the scriptures define God is not comparable to the universe nor to any physical process when talking about the laws that rule them.

You haven't said anything about God that excludes it from an alleged need for a first cause that couldn't also be applied to the universe or other natural processes.

God is eternal, that means he has no beginning nor end.

I mean it's not problematic in the same way,

A God who has existed forever (i.e. infinitely in the past) has the exact same "logical problems" you assert infinite regress has. You either have to exclude both or exclude neither.

Furthermore, he is described as omnipresent, omniscient, etc; 'everything was made by him and nothing could have ever existed without him'. He is reason itself (the greek word logos means a few more things, from which the word logic or the suffix -logy derives, by the way).

These are baseless claims. There's no evidence something like this exists or even could exist. And, more to the point, these claims don't change anything about what I said.

we don't have principles for whatever that happens beyond our physical dimension.

Then you agree that we don't have enough information to say what must be true about the origins of the universe, making the first-cause argument moot.

Science (whose element of experimentation is matter) can't mess with the abstract: let's say how fortune-tellers do their trick, those rituals to contact the dead, that sort of things are not explainable in that way.

The sciences are the only ways we have to discern what's true or likely true, regardless of its limitations. If a claim is beyond the scope of science, then there's no sound reason to believe the claim is true.

Science can absolutely demonstrate whether or not fortune tellers can reliably contact the dead (so far, this hasn't happened), but you are correct that a limitation of science is that it might not be able to explain how they do it. So what?

You would dissapear from your family picture haha...

I know you were joking, but you didn't pay attention to my example, because in it, there was no change to the past.

(1)Is the assailant from the past the same assailant from present, meaning that if I kill him he would just vanish from present?

Your future self was the assailant. You didn't kill anybody except me (albeit accidentally). There was no other assailant.

(2)Why would I become your assailant in that case you narrated?

I only got shot because your future self stumbled over a rock and accidentally fired your gun at me. Your future self (accidentally) was my assailant all along.

The question then becomes: What caused the events leading to my death? There isn't an obvious answer.

I don't have to eliminate anything because my conclusion is just another possibility.

Yes you do, because the entire premise of the first-cause argument is that something is true or likely true because "nothing else is possible." That's poor reasoning, and that's not even considering that the first-cause argument doesn't even eliminate other possibilities.

Actually I may consider these theories too, as long as they're coherent

They're as coherent as any other proposed explanations.

since they may be compatible with the existence of god after all.

This is probably the most intellectually dishonest thing you've said so far, and you should be embarrassed. You just admitted that you're only willing to entertain an idea if it's compatible with your preconceived notion that a god exists. That isn't how logical reasoning works.

If we eliminated literally every possible cause of death, then it's not really a dead body. On the contrary, if it's really a dead body, then we didn't eliminate every possible cause of death.

I misspoke. I should have said "if we eliminated every possible cause of death we could think of." My point still stands however. If we eliminate every possible cause of death we can think of, that doesn't mean you're logically justified to accept another proposed explanation solely because we can't think of anything else.

That's what you've been trying to do with God this whole time. If you want to argue a god exists and caused the universe, you would have to demonstrate that. We could have zero other possible explanations for the origins of the universe, and that wouldn't make belief in God a rational belief.

My point is that this position or the other have a rational basis for accepting their possibilities.

No rational basis for belief in God or belief in the actual possibility of God has been provided by you or anyone else. The first-cause doesn't get you close to either, for example.

is it just me or are you making a claim here?

It's just you. I've made no claim.

In context what I said was that possibilities aren't per se illogical.

Yes they are. The actual possibility of something must be demonstrated.

If any, I'm defending the reasoning that's behind it or any other. The first cause argument is just the one I happen to know the most, that's all.

You're defending the indefensible.

It's like you with the theories you like, that's how much I care defending it.

The first-cause argument doesn't come close to comparable with scientific theories. Scientific theories are supported by evidence, but the first-cause argument is unsound and invalid.

Every scientific theory I accept to be true is because of the evidence. If you take away that evidence, I don't have some sort of emotional reason for believing it. What I want to believe is irrelevant. In other words, I defend beliefs because they're supported by evidence, not because I'm emotionally invested in the claim being true. That's the difference between you and me. I care if my beliefs are true, but you care more about believing in God than whether or not the belief is true. My position is intellectually honest, and yours is not.

"Haven't been disproved" isn't the same as untrue or contradictory.

Of course not.

Don't you accept claims as likely true just because they haven't been disproved? I thought you did.

Of course not.

It depends on what specific topic you're referring to. I get that you like just one definition of faith, it's okay.

That's because any other definition of "faith" is irrelevant to the conversation.

Jesus used that word but in fact he proved to the people around that he had authority over the laws of nature, that nature obeyed him, that he could perform miracles and things like that.

This is an unsubstantiated claim that no rational person should believe is true.

When Moses wrote the laws, they were explained in detail under different circumstances in his writings. e.g under what circumstances killing is condemned.
Now, evidence to believe what the bible says? Tradition aside, I think our only recourse is historical, but given how old the books are I'm afraid there are only bits of evidence here and there. I mean there are characters that were documented outside of religious writings that match the time period and stuff, archaeological discoveries, there are old prophecies whose predictions came true, there are some on Jesus himself as well, that sort of evidence.

There's no evidence the Bible is true. The presence of historical people or places in the Bible does not to demonstrate the truthfulness of anything else in the Bible.

Abraham Lincoln existed, but that doesn't mean Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is true. New York City exists, but that doesn't mean Spider-Man exists.

The bible was out of the comparison though. That was not the point.

Replace "Bible" with "religion," and my point still stands.

The term slavery is wide in the bible context, the original word is used to describe different things; the translation often just use the word slave. The teachings about slavery in our times are biased and have a burden of negative connotations because yeah it's been generally cruel, especially in 19th/20th centuries; the first things that we picture are shackles, chains, lashes and very oppresive lords. But in the past, slavery was kind of a "protection system" (please note the quotes) for the poor.
I'll give some examples as I'm pretty sure this will continue to be misunderstood.
People who for whatever reason -a fire for instance- lose all their possessions, or people that otherwise were very miserable, for the most part such as orphans, widows, sick people, etc. could "sell themselves" as slaves. God established laws for slavery in that time. Particularly, the slave had to work for 7 years, then his lord had to free them and give them a 'payment' (animals and whatnot) so he could become independent. It gives details in case the slave had a family, etc. The bible condemns those lords who arbitrarily mistreated their slaves, and also the slaves who cunningly took advantage of and betrayed their lords.
A second case is when for whatever reasons you are guilty for the dispossession of somebody else. In the past there were not such a thing as credit, so you had to repay the exact thing, however if you could not repay, then you had to become his slave (work for him) until you could compensate the debt.
There were other forms of slavery. The point is that the bible is against the type of slavery that is universally understand as bad. In fact Yahweh itself freed the people from slavery (the oppresive type of slavery) in Egypt.

The Bible promotes and even gives rules for ownership of another person. Ownership of another person as property is grossly immoral without exception. Beyond that, the Bible condones and promotes the kind of slavery where you're allowed to brutally beat a slave, and it can even be to death as long as the slave dies at least a day or two later. The Bible even gives instructions for tricking or coercing slaves into being your property forever instead of for a limited amount of time.

There is no excuse for this, and you've sold out your humanity all in defense of a ridiculous and unsubstantiated belief in a sky god who is immensely immoral. It's pathetic, it's sad, and it's why I entered this thread in the first place to say that religious beliefs are perhaps the only thing in the world that can make otherwise good people do terrible things. I think you are probably a good person, but you just posted a paragraph in defense of brutal slavery like a monster. You should be both embarrassed and ashamed. Nothing you said changes any of this.

If we take god out of the picture in the bible context, you get nothing. Everything would become subjective; if we replace him with a human (a captain, a king, etc) we would think that he's doing all he does for his own benefit. But given that God existence is canon then the anti-humanistic thing that you call is justified and explained.

I don't care about a "Bible context." Nobody should.

I am not surprised you are trying to defend anti-humanism, given your pro-slavery shitpost above.

What's the evidence disproving it?

The existence of anything naturally occurring that is organized.

The key is 'we'. Who?
Who is gonna define what it means for something to be moral?
If consensus leads to subjective morals, how can we establish objective morals for everyone?

What we mean when we say "moral" is subjective. That's true of any word. However, if we decide that we mean "that which is conducive to well being," and we decide we care about that, we can make objective statements about what is or isn't immoral, not subjective ones. Nearly everybody cares about well-being, so there's no problem.

Subjective morality would be if you said something was moral/immoral because somebody said so, and that's the religious position. If your view of morality is that something is moral because God said so, then you believe something like murder or slavery becomes moral if God says so, and when it comes to the latter, that's apparently the case, which means you can go fuck yourself.

 

[smf]

You don't know what evidence is. That is evidence, but it's not proof. The snow storm going on right now is evidence that it will not be 100 degrees tomorrow. Or whatever degrees makes sense in celsius.

No, that is still not evidence. They are facts about the past, but not evidence for what will happen in the future.

https://www.boredpanda.com/before-a...oogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/27/17053284/arctic-heat-wave-north-pole-climate

If you're going to be that lax on evidence, then you have to accept "the sun rising in the morning is evidence that god exists"

 

[tabzer]

If your view of morality is that something is moral because God said so, then you believe something like murder or slavery becomes moral if God says so, and when it comes to the latter, that's apparently the case, which means you can go fuck yourself.

That's right, us civil folk elect people to do the killings for us so our hands aren't dirty. We follow the clear moral compass that is based on our favorite color.

 

[Lacius]

No, that is still not evidence. They are facts about the past, but not evidence for what will happen in the future.

https://www.boredpanda.com/before-a...oogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/27/17053284/arctic-heat-wave-north-pole-climate

If you're going to be that lax on evidence, then you have to accept "the sun rising in the morning is evidence that god exists"

You should do some research on what meteorology actually is. Weather forecasts are, in fact, based on scientific evidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorology

 

[september796]

These are baseless claims. There's no evidence something like this exists or even could exist. And, more to the point, these claims don't change anything about what I said.

Maybe the issue here is coz of this quoting format. You asked about the characteristic -followed by how it's different from the universe- then I answered according to how Yahweh is described (since it's like the most famous and universal description for a god), but since I have explained it so many times I thought of expanding a little, so I added more canon characteristics.

Then you agree that we don't have enough information to say what must be true about the origins of the universe, making the first-cause argument moot.

I agree, yes. Though I don't know the word moot, but by how it translates I'd say yeah as well. Obviously is debatable, and I tell you more, it has little weight in comparison to the scientific research. I'd say it's just complementary.

The sciences are the only ways we have to discern what's true or likely true, regardless of its limitations. If a claim is beyond the scope of science, then there's no sound reason to believe the claim is true.

In principle I also agree with this one, but science is not all ,there's just so many things that happen to us throughout our life that are inexplicable and has this kind of spiritual connection, in fact (not my case) but we can't ignore how many people have had good/bad actual supernatural experiences: demonic possessions, exorcisms, enlightenment (idk if the term is correct), among others. If science can't tell us how that happens or why, we can't simple reject its reality. If we do it, we may be losing something. And for the record, I'm not saying we should believe just because we saw it in the movies or in a documentary whatever without experiencing them, just that at least IMO we should't reject them for good.

Science can absolutely demonstrate whether or not fortune tellers can reliably contact the dead (so far, this hasn't happened), but you are correct that a limitation of science is that it might not be able to explain how they do it. So what?

I wouldn''t be so sure. It depends on how you think they perform the contact (the succesful ones ofc, since there must be a ton that are fake or use spectacular methods for other reasons).

I know you were joking, but you didn't pay attention to my example, because in it, there was no change to the past.

As short as it was it didn't make sense to me really. You said I went back in time and accidentally killed you... So therefore I thought I killed you in the past. [?]

Your future self was the assailant. You didn't kill anybody except me (albeit accidentally). There was no other assailant.

That means the 'mystery' assailant was an exact replica of me in the same time period?

The question then becomes: What caused the events leading to my death? There isn't an obvious answer.

The obvious answer would be that I caused it, wouldn't it? But let's see your reply first.

Yes you do, because the entire premise of the first-cause argument is that something is true or likely true because "nothing else is possible." That's poor reasoning, and that's not even considering that the first-cause argument doesn't even eliminate other possibilities.

That's why I also asked if the 'universe creating itself in the future' proposition you exposed eliminated every other possibility in order to be accepted as one. I think if the firstcause arguement or any other argument eliminated every other possibility, then it would become like the definitve answer to this whole mystery and we wouldn't be discussing it.

This is probably the most intellectually dishonest thing you've said so far, and you should be embarrassed. You just admitted that you're only willing to entertain an idea if it's compatible with your preconceived notion that a god exists. That isn't how logical reasoning works.

I've actually said that way earlier, that I lean toward that possibility the most. I still can change my mind though, it's why I'm here reading more arguments, it's just that all of them seem to go along with it just fine. So by considering them I won't necessarily be moving from my position, which is good. But if tomorrow they really find out the definitive answer that disproves god, so be it, no need to be embarrased. That'll be bad-good, because god would be fake but the mystery would get solved once and for all.

I misspoke. I should have said "if we eliminated every possible cause of death we could think of." My point still stands however. If we eliminate every possible cause of death we can think of, that doesn't mean you're logically justified to accept another proposed explanation solely because we can't think of anything else.

I agree. But in that same scenario, suppose there are millennia-old traditions from all over the world that have been telling us from generation to generation that one day a magical pixie will give a strange death to a person in the forest. So, in my opinion, it's fine to accept that proposal even if we haven't discovered any living things like that yet. I can then further surmise that they are possibly not magical, or perhaps the descriptions given to them in the past were not that literal, etc. but accept the proposal nonetheless.

No rational basis for belief in God or belief in the actual possibility of God has been provided by you or anyone else. The first-cause doesn't get you close to either, for example.

We ran into the same problem once again. The subtlety of language. Depends of what we mean when we say rational. A philosophical argument even if it's just deductive is rational as a base to consider its possibility -not to accept it as absolute truth ofc- as long as it doesn't contradict itself or science finds out actual sound prove that debunks it, etc, although we don't know for sure its truthfulness. In this case in particular there is most likely nothing we can do as of now since there is no way to reach whatever spiritual by physical means let alone prove/disprove it, but I'm afraid not even that would allow us to conclude anything in the topic of creation.

Yes they are. The actual possibility of something must be demonstrated.

This one states nothing less that one initiator may be possible or at least not an irrational idea. Wouldn't it become a fact if it's demonstrated?

You're defending the indefensible.

Not indefensible just very tough, same as trying to reason why we may be made out of luck without intention nor purpose. I think it can only go as far as a metaphysical argument which is by definition unsound.

Every scientific theory I accept to be true is because of the evidence. If you take away that evidence, I don't have some sort of emotional reason for believing it. What I want to believe is irrelevant. In other words, I defend beliefs because they're supported by evidence, not because I'm emotionally invested in the claim being true. That's the difference between you and me. I care if my beliefs are true, but you care more about believing in God than whether or not the belief is true. My position is intellectually honest, and yours is not.

As a skeptical how did you come to accept a theory like let-s say the time travel one? How come you accept the evidence they presented?

This is an unsubstantiated claim that no rational person should believe is true.

There's no evidence for the miracles of jesus, but there are some well documented most recent cases of miracles performed in his name I think. It's something (lol). I get it though that from a rationalist point of view a religious claim like this is irrational to believe if you've not seen it by yourself, because even if you did witness a miracle,that would lead you to believe others without proof that are most likely fake.

There's no evidence the Bible is true. The presence of historical people or places in the Bible does not to demonstrate the truthfulness of anything else in the Bible.

Like any historical book from ancient age in fact. I mean of course it's not evidence for what it is said in every single passage/book of the bible, maybe for some of its historical ones, but certainly not for let's say the book of revelation. You will hardly find evidence for supernatural things that the bible described like say the giants, demons, angels flying around, the flood myth, etc. For something like the truthfulness of its proverbs I'd say common sense is needed.

Abraham Lincoln existed, but that doesn't mean Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is true. New York City exists, but that doesn't mean Spider-Man exists.

If there were a massive tradition and lore over it, who knows. If they are recent or contemporary events it'll make things way easier to rule out or to prove. It's comparable to aliens; there's like a big thing behind it, lots of testimonies describing creatures with big eyes and the like, but we've never seen one, although some people claim they did. I can't say for sure it's all fake.

Replace "Bible" with "religion," and my point still stands.

Actually the subject was slavery but whatever.

The Bible promotes and even gives rules for ownership of another person. Ownership of another person as property is grossly immoral without exception.

It certainly gives rules for slavery, no doubt, but promoting? It depends. You need to understand its context like it or not. But, like I said, that's not necessarily immoral. With a 21th century mindset it sure sounds awful because now in most places even the poorest person can survive on their own in one way or another. The laws in the bible take into account the time period in which they were. In the past mortality rate was high, the vast majority of the population was poor, hunger, sickness, etc. Slavery was a system in which both, lord and slave, benefited. It was very archaic sure.

Beyond that, the Bible condones and promotes the kind of slavery where you're allowed to brutally beat a slave, and it can even be to death as long as the slave dies at least a day or two later. The Bible even gives instructions for tricking or coercing slaves into being your property forever instead of for a limited amount of time.

Well I said I'm a bible reader, but I'm still more or less half though the thing, so I don't know for sure about that since I don't remember having read what you're saying here. If you could provide the verses I'd like to read them myself.

I think you are probably a good person, but you just posted a paragraph in defense of brutal slavery like a monster. You should be both embarrassed and ashamed. Nothing you said changes any of this.

lol I did not defend brutal slavery, wtf. You're overreacting. But I won't come back to that topic, I think what I said was clear enough.

I don't care about a "Bible context." Nobody should.

I am not surprised you are trying to defend anti-humanism, given your pro-slavery shitpost above.

But we need to know a little about the time in which those events took place, otherwise we would not be able to understand what's the real message behind it.

What we mean when we say "moral" is subjective. That's true of any word. However, if we decide that we mean "that which is conducive to well being," and we decide we care about that, we can make objective statements about what is or isn't immoral, not subjective ones. Nearly everybody cares about well-being, so there's no problem.

But again, when you say "we", who do you mean?

If your view of morality is that something is moral because God said so, then you believe something like murder or slavery becomes moral if God says so, and when it comes to the latter, that's apparently the case, which means you can go fuck yourself.

How dare you ... Murder is explicitly condemned in its most ancient written law: the 10 commandments; brutal slavery is also condemned as far as I know.

 

[Lacius]

but we can't ignore how many people have had good/bad actual supernatural experiences: demonic possessions, exorcisms, enlightenment (idk if the term is correct), among others. If science can't tell us how that happens or why, we can't simple reject its reality. If we do it, we may be losing something. And for the record, I'm not saying we should believe just because we saw it in the movies or in a documentary whatever without experiencing them, just that at least IMO we should't reject them for good.

Until there's evidence for these things, they should be rejected. Anything else is irrational.

As short as it was it didn't make sense to me really. You said I went back in time and accidentally killed you... So therefore I thought I killed you in the past. [?]

That means the 'mystery' assailant was an exact replica of me in the same time period?

The obvious answer would be that I caused it, wouldn't it? But let's see your reply first.

You killed me in the past. That didn't change the past, since that's what happened in the past.

It's an issue of A causes B causes C causes A causes B.... It's called a causal loop, and there isn't a clear cause.

But if tomorrow they really find out the definitive answer that disproves god, so be it, no need to be embarrased. That'll be bad-good, because god would be fake but the mystery would get solved once and for all.

We reject claims when they haven't met their burden of proof. We don't wait for a claim to be disproven before we reject it.

This one states nothing less that one initiator may be possible or at least not an irrational idea. Wouldn't it become a fact if it's demonstrated?

The actual possibility must be demonstrated in order to be able to say it's possible.

As a skeptical how did you come to accept a theory like let-s say the time travel one? How come you accept the evidence they presented?

I don't accept that backwards time travel is possible, and I don't accept that it's possible the universe in the future caused itself in the past. Evidence for these things hasn't been provided.

There's no evidence for the miracles of jesus, but there are some well documented most recent cases of miracles performed in his name I think.

There is no evidence for "miracles performed in his name."

If there were a massive tradition and lore over it, who knows. If they are recent or contemporary events it'll make things way easier to rule out or to prove. It's comparable to aliens; there's like a big thing behind it, lots of testimonies describing creatures with big eyes and the like, but we've never seen one, although some people claim they did. I can't say for sure it's all fake.

Again, we reject claims when they haven't met their burden of proof. We don't wait for a claim to be disproven before we reject it. We don't know for sure that alien abduction stories are fake, but we should reject them until there's evidence. The same goes for God.

It certainly gives rules for slavery, no doubt, but promoting? It depends. You need to understand its context like it or not. But, like I said, that's not necessarily immoral. With a 21th century mindset it sure sounds awful because now in most places even the poorest person can survive on their own in one way or another. The laws in the bible take into account the time period in which they were. In the past mortality rate was high, the vast majority of the population was poor, hunger, sickness, etc. Slavery was a system in which both, lord and slave, benefited. It was very archaic sure.

I fully understand the historical context regarding slavery in the Bible. What you don't understand is that the Bible's passages on slavery are grossly immoral. Ownership of another human being as property is immoral, and that's even before we throw in the "you can savagely beat them (even to death) as long as they survive for at least a couple of days after the beating first" part.

As I said earlier, you've twisted and contorted your thoughts in an effort to defend the indefensible because it's your precious Bible. You've scarified your humanity for an idiotic idea, and you should be criticized as deplorable, as well as pitied.

lol I did not defend brutal slavery, wtf. You're overreacting.

You did, I'm not overreacting, and you should be embarrassed.

How dare you ... Murder is explicitly condemned in its most ancient written law: the 10 commandments

Right, because God commanded it. My point is that, in a religious moral framework, God could issue new commandments saying murder was fine or even encouraged, and you're saying that would make murder moral. That's absurd as well as dangerous.

brutal slavery is also condemned as far as I know.

It isn't. "As far as you know" doesn't mean much apparently.

 

[september796]

There is no evidence for "miracles performed in his name."

There are cases that have been well documented. That is some evidence; whether it's enough or not, whether it's actually within the scope of science, whether its cause is subject to experimentation, is another story.

Again, we reject claims when they haven't met their burden of proof. We don't wait for a claim to be disproven before we reject it. We don't know for sure that alien abduction stories are fake, but we should reject them until there's evidence. The same goes for God.

Well fine if you're 99,9% skeptical, I'm like 50%. I'm not completely negative about them. It's necessary to trust the evidence and all, but know that not everything that happens is evidenceable.

Ownership of another human being as property is immoral, and that's even before we throw in the "you can savagely beat them (even to death) as long as they survive for at least a couple of days after the beating first" part.

That 'ownership' part is also not necessarily immoral per se. The original word is a wide term in the bible. e.g. God and his church, husband and his wife, parents and their children, all work kinda in the same way. Just as children are under their parents' rules the slaves are under their lord's rules, but before that everyone of them is under God's rules, which are the only unbreakable ones. That's why I doubt that second assertion.

As I said earlier, you've twisted and contorted your thoughts in an effort to defend the indefensible because it's your precious Bible. You've scarified your humanity for an idiotic idea, and you should be criticized as deplorable, as well as pitied.

You know, I've never been an atheist actually I was always very indiferent to religions claims and the god idea. My 'precious bibles' are some PDFs I downloaded but ngl I wish I had a physical one properly translated. Thing is, at first I started reading it as some sort of epic. Blind reading some passages can be shocking especially in the first few books, but you soon realize it all makes sense in the end. If the thing is not inspired by god then it's some strange 'miracle' for it to be so consistent and 'perfect' despite being written by different people, in different places and at different times. If it's just a myth then it's the richest and flawless I could think of.

Right, because God commanded it. My point is that, in a religious moral framework, God could issue new commandments saying murder was fine or even encouraged, and you're saying that would make murder moral. That's absurd as well as dangerous.

God could issue new commandments and in fact has done so a few times but these follow the same nature. Since his nature is perfect, he can't go against it. Different laws were given through the history: first, the law for adam/eve, then the law given to Noah, then the law of Moses, etc. For example, since in the law of Moses he says fornicate is bad he could not then say 'now I say it is okay to fornicate'. God's own standard of morality is immutable. However, what he does not really require from men differs based on the situation of humanity. When God commands something different, it is because something in men changed, not because God changed.

It isn't. "As far as you know" doesn't mean much apparently.

I said "as far as I know" because you said otherwise and it got me thinking. What I said is that that's how I understand things until this point, but misinterpretation or out of context analysis is usually the case with that kind of assertions.

 

[Lacius]

There are cases that have been well documented. That is some evidence; whether it's enough or not, whether it's actually within the scope of science, whether its cause is subject to experimentation, is another story.

If I pray for rain in Jesus' name, and it starts to rain, how do we distinguish between a miracle and coincidence?

In reality, the existence of miracles has not been demonstrated. Hell, prayer alone has been demonstrated to work only as well as random chance, which is what we would expect if prayer didn't work.

Well fine if you're 99,9% skeptical, I'm like 50%. I'm not completely negative about them. It's necessary to trust the evidence and all, but know that not everything that happens is evidenceable.

It is idiotic to believe a claim that hasn't been demonstrated with evidence. Whether or not evidence for a claim is even possible is irrelevant.

That 'ownership' part is also not necessarily immoral per se.

Ownership of another human being is always immoral, and you should be ashamed for arguing otherwise.

The original word is a wide term in the bible. e.g. God and his church, husband and his wife, parents and their children, all work kinda in the same way. Just as children are under their parents' rules the slaves are under their lord's rules, but before that everyone of them is under God's rules, which are the only unbreakable ones. That's why I doubt that second assertion.

You're demonstrably wrong about what the Bible says.

"Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property."

Exodus 21:20-21

Just as children are under their parents' rules the slaves are under their lord's rules

Children are not their parents' property.

You know, I've never been an atheist actually I was always very indiferent to religions claims and the god idea. My 'precious bibles' are some PDFs I downloaded but ngl I wish I had a physical one properly translated. Thing is, at first I started reading it as some sort of epic. Blind reading some passages can be shocking especially in the first few books, but you soon realize it all makes sense in the end. If the thing is not inspired by god then it's some strange 'miracle' for it to be so consistent and 'perfect' despite being written by different people, in different places and at different times. If it's just a myth then it's the richest and flawless I could think of.

The Bible is a hot mess of contradictions, plot holes, and immorality.

Whether or not a book is consistent, well-written, and moral is also irrelevant to whether or not there's any reason to think its claims are true.

God could issue new commandments and in fact has done so a few times but these follow the same nature. Since his nature is perfect, he can't go against it. Different laws were given through the history: first, the law for adam/eve, then the law given to Noah, then the law of Moses, etc. For example, since in the law of Moses he says fornicate is bad he could not then say 'now I say it is okay to fornicate'. God's own standard of morality is immutable. However, what he does not really require from men differs based on the situation of humanity. When God commands something different, it is because something in men changed, not because God changed.

The point is that God could change his mind and say murder is moral, whether or not he actually believes it, and you're saying that would make it moral. Hell, God did this in the Binding of Isaac, so it isn't even hypothetical.

This is also the same immoral god who endorses brutal slavery, genocide, stoning people, sending people to Hell, etc. You don't seem to be familiar with "God's nature."

When God commands something different, it is because something in men changed, not because God changed.

If God is going to change his proclamations of what is/isn't moral based on how humans are acting in any given moment, then isn't that a worthless and feckless god who doesn't offer anything consistent or substantive? You seem to be making the case that God is a liar, and you can't trust any of his moral proclamations because he might be saving the truthful ones for later.

 

[september796]

If I pray for rain in Jesus' name, and it starts to rain, how do we distinguish between a miracle and coincidence?

I'd say the prayers are mostly for support purposes, but don't quote me on that, for all I know if you don't sincerely identify as a god's servant and go his way, then the prayer is probably useless. Now, if you learn the way, internalize it and practice it, then you won't pray for rain unless there is a situation where people are suffering from drought or something. What I mean is that you will not ask for selfish things, your prayer must go on the same path as the path of the saints so to speak.
Miracles, of which I have read, were not given by a prayer but because the beneficiary was very devoted to, say, a virgin or a saint, etc. The miracle of Calanda, to say something is very famous (among catholics) and is well documented.

You're demonstrably wrong about what the Bible says.

"Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property."

Exodus 21:20-21

Okay, I might be wrong but this is what I can say after reading the whole 21 chapter: First, it says that if a man arbitrarily kills another -out of rage, out of anger- he should be punished by death (12 & 14). Then it says that if two men engage in a fight and one beats the other but does not kill him, the perpetrator doesn't receive death punishment but instead must pay compensation for the days it took for the other to recover (18-19). What about if they're lord/slave? (this is the one you quoted) In case of killing the slave, the perpetrator is under the same law of vengeance, that is, death punishment (the slave had the same natural right as a free man, apparently). What if the slave didn't die? Same story as with any free man: the perpetrator doesn't receive death punishment. Though here's one difference: the perpetrator (lord) doesn't owe the slave any compensation for the days it took him to recover. Why? Because the lord payed for him -and in fact the slave is living under his lord's roof, eating from his fields, etc-.
It's quite clear to me. This law is not promoting any bad behavior, actually the bible talks about the proper way in which a lord/slave should behave towards each other in other passages (see Coloss 3:22- onwards for example). Also by reading exodus ch 21 it can be inferred that slavery in the Hebrew people (unlike that of Egypt) wasn't generally oppresive or cruel, since there were cases in which the slave by his own free will chose to renounce his freedom to stay with his lord, implying that he had a good relationship with him; there's a rule for that aswell.

Children are not their parents' property.

Sure, but the point of it was that the analogy works in terms of subordination. Children are compelled to follow the rules their parents give them, while parents are also compelled to make their rules agree with God's. It's a hierarchy.

The point is that God could change his mind and say murder is moral, whether or not he actually believes it, and you're saying that would make it moral. Hell, God did this in the Binding of Isaac, so it isn't even hypothetical.

This is also the same immoral god who endorses brutal slavery, genocide, stoning people, sending people to Hell, etc. You don't seem to be familiar with "God's nature."

Except God did not change his mind in the binding of isaac (I didn't know it was called like that), if that had been the case He would have let it happen. It was for abraham to take the mission God commanded him seriusly I think. Sure it is a sad story but afterwards it was actually God himself who gave his own son for sacrifice, go figure lol.

If God is going to change his proclamations of what is/isn't moral based on how humans are acting in any given moment, then isn't that a worthless and feckless god who doesn't offer anything consistent or substantive? You seem to be making the case that God is a liar, and you can't trust any of his moral proclamations because he might be saving the truthful ones for later.

This is the case when humans make laws though, they can be self-contradictory to the detriment of humans themselves. But what I said about god's law is that he can say something different but not morally different, if that makes sense.
It is not that the later laws were the true ones and the previous ones were lies, the later ones added more things and were more detailed because men were degenerating for being idolaters. eg The commandments for Adam/Eve were simple: grow, reproduce and populate the earth, eat the fruits of the trees, etc. (no eating animals allowed, i think) While by the times of Noah it was allowed for them to eat anything, with a few exceptions. But there was nothing on killing or fornicate; it does not mean god was okay with that.
When Moses was around, slavery was common in society -as I said- for better or worse, so God established laws for it for the hebrew people; there was a lot of idolaters around so he made very strict laws for that, and so on.