How do you attempt to rationalise with the completely irrational?

[JimL]

JimL is not very bright.

Which is also an example of natural evil.

:outtie

Wow, interesting. That ad hom attack came from out of nowhere. What's up with that? Odd too, since you interpreted MM's argument the same way I did.

You in response to MM: "Only a dude who doubts evolution and believes in YEC would have the gall to say that predation,, disease, and calamity are the fault of human beings."

Not sure what's up with you guy, but whatever.

[seer]

Only in the sense that yours isn't either, and that no standard can be - according to your definition of "objective". Of course, when a definition starts destroying well-accepted concepts, such as "objective standard", the definition is almost always bad.

The real problem for you (here) is that your definition means that your God doesn't have an objective standard for goodness, either.

Of course God does not have a standard for goodness, He is the standard. And that moral character is immutable as His moral law is universal and certain. Not based on the fickle nature and character of men. In your case we live in an amoral universe, my universe is moral. In my universe humans have inherent worth, in your universe humans have no more intrinsic than a house fly.

[seer]

There is also a plethora of evidence in the world to show that even if some creative being/god did exist it is certainly neither all powerful nor all good.

Well you certainly have not made the case. Not logically...

[Sparko]

It's literally called the problem of natural evil, whether or not you consider it as such.

https://iep.utm.edu/evil-log/



Are you saying people weren't affected by natural evil 200,000-100,000 years ago?



You're conflating two kinds of evil, "immoral choices of free creatures" and "operations of nature or nature gone awry." Philosophers and theologians agree that both kinds of evil result in suffering. Suffering existed for billions of years, therefore there was no way human beings could have caused it.

you are the one who brought up "predation"


Adam was the first human. Whether you believe he lived 6,000 or 1 million years ago. Once he sinned creation fell along with men. I know you don't believe that, but that's your problem not mine. We are discussing this from the framework of Christianity, not naturalism. So bringing up naturalism into a discussion about the problem of evil with a Christian God is just a category area.

So within the Christian paradigm, there is no problem of evil with the Christian God, because 1. the fall of Creation was the fault of man and 2. God in his mercy is holding off on destroying all evil until the full number of saints is achieved.

[Sparko]

It denies my interlocutor "wriggle room"

Is that the best you could come up with?

By the mid second century the itinerant Jewish Galilean peasant holy man had been transformed into a divinity but the nature of his divinity was far from being decided.

We know from studies that have been carried out based on evidence that still exists for various early Christian groups, in particular those in Edessa, Egypt, Asia Minor, Rome, Macedonia, and Antioch, that those disparate early Christian communities in those early centuries did not all hold to one single orthodoxy. It is clear that Christianity embodied a large number of divergent forms none of which represented the clear majority theological viewpoint.

Within some of those early communities versions of Christianity were accepted that would, only later, be deemed "heretical". In other communities beliefs that would later be condemned existed quite comfortably alongside beliefs that would later be accepted by the Christian church.

The fact remains that Christianity in its first 250 years was entirely fluid. This is something so many Christians, especially those on the fundamentalist evangelical wing of the religion either do not know, or choose not to want to know. Many seem to prefer the nonsense that the religion was established once and for all with no dissent and no questions in 33 CE [or thereabouts].

Allow me to dismiss your opinion like you just did my evidence that gave you exactly what you asked for.

[Sparko]

According to the dictionary, I have an objective standard for goodness if that standard is written down on a piece of paper.

Thus, Christians have objective standards for morality, and so do atheists. It's not that impressive...

um what?

That's not what objective morality is.

[Whateverman]

Only in the sense that yours isn't either, and that no standard can be - according to your definition of "objective". Of course, when a definition starts destroying well-accepted concepts, such as "objective standard", the definition is almost always bad.

The real problem for you (here) is that your definition means that your God doesn't have an objective standard for goodness, either.

Of course God does not have a standard for goodness, He is the standard.

Irrelevant semantic nonsense. Your definition renders his standard Not Objective.

[Whateverman]

um what?

That's not what objective morality is.

It is according to the dictionary. I recognize that dictionaries are effectively kryptonite to Christian apologism, which seeks to redefine words in order to bootstrap its doctrine into validity. However, I'm not obligated to accept those creative redefinitions.

The most relevant definition for the term "objective morality" is that the morality is not dependent upon minds. God has a mind, which says "I am the standard", which makes His morality Not Objective.

[seer]

Irrelevant semantic nonsense. Your definition renders his standard Not Objective.

Is God and His immutable moral character objective to humankind in a way nothing else could be? Of course.

But again:

God = universal moral truths, moral certainty.

God = moral just universe.

God = inherent human worth.

God = transcendent human purpose.


No God = relative ethics and morality.

No God = amoral non-just universe.

No God = no intrinsic human worth.

No God = no transcendent human purpose.

[Whateverman]

Is God and His immutable moral character objective to humankind in a way nothing else could be? Of course.

You're going to have to do better than stomping your rhetorical foot on this. Rather than merely asserting it, demonstrate it.

[Whateverman]

I've shown that word apologists are using can be found-in and is defined-by the dictionary.

Apologists insist that the word "objective" means something different from what the dictionary says.

So show us where in scripture God has defined the word "objective". Show us where this alternate definition exists.

ps. this is impossible, because the fact is that Christians have been misusing the word for a log time. They've redefined it to mean something equivalent to whatever God says and does or according to God's absolute authority.

[seer]

You're going to have to do better than stomping your rhetorical foot on this. Rather than merely asserting it, demonstrate it.

It doesn't matter whether you call the law of God objective or universal the end is the same:

God = universal moral truths, moral certainty.

God = moral just universe.

God = inherent human worth.

God = transcendent human purpose.


No God = relative ethics and morality.

No God = amoral non-just universe.

No God = no intrinsic human worth.

No God = no transcendent human purpose.

[Whateverman]

It doesn't matter whether you call the law of God objective or universal the end is the same:

God = universal moral truths, moral certainty.

God = moral just universe.

God = inherent human worth.

God = transcendent human purpose.


No God = relative ethics and morality.

No God = amoral non-just universe.

No God = no intrinsic human worth.

No God = no transcendent human purpose.

Then you were wrong when you used the word objective to label God's standard for Goodness; you were wrong to claim atheist can't provide an objective standard for Good.

That's pretty much the purpose of this thread, and it appears to have succeeded.

[seer]

Then you were wrong when you used the word objective to label God's standard for Goodness.

Like I said, God's moral nature is objective to humankind and the universe for that fact in a way nothing else is. God's moral nature is also subjective to him. That however does not change any of this:


God = universal moral truths, moral certainty.

God = moral just universe.

God = inherent human worth.

God = transcendent human purpose.


No God = relative ethics and morality.

No God = amoral non-just universe.

No God = no intrinsic human worth.

No God = no transcendent human purpose.

[Whateverman]

Like I said, God's moral nature is objective to humankind and the universe for that fact in a way nothing else is.

Where's your biblical definition of "objective"?

An objective standard that can't be seen, and whose existence we're suppose to accept on the basis of faith alone - isn't objective.