Animals Doing What Animals Do...

[Kelp(p)]

Because the New Testament says nothing at about about being allowed to eat all foods, and this freedom is something Christians cooked up in the 20th century in the homosexuality cultural wars.

You keep kosher?

[pancreasman]

You keep kosher?

I think he was being sarcastic.

[Kelp(p)]

Oh. Yeah, you're right lol.

[Truthseeker]

If God of the Bible is real, every atheist who asserts that he is a realist is wrong.

By definition, murder is unjustified killing. So, of course murder is wrong. A problem is, some killing could be justified. Self defense is a good reason for that.

[Tassman]

I'm sorry that you cannot accept reality, and would rather waste your final years praying desperately for an afterlife that you cannot possibly prove is real. When you left agnosticism (I'll assume agnostic atheism, since agnosticism needs a subject in order to be valid), you also left reality. You decided that, rather than accept the world for how it is, you'd rather cling to a fantasy to make everything seem nice and cosy. You left behind your freedom in exchange for mental slavery; your sense of right and wrong for being told what is right and wrong by desert nomads of the BCEs.

I can't say that I blame you. I'm sure it must be the best feeling in the world - to live life truly believing that there's something better waiting for you when you die. I wish I could share the same beliefs as you do; truly, I do. I wish I could believe in an afterlife, and a loving creator god. I wish it were real. But, I am cursed with the mentality of a realist; forced to accept what is most clear to me. I lack the capabilities for faith that you possess, and for that, I envy you greatly.

But, hopelessness and death? Nay. Hope comes and goes for all of us. As an anti-theist, I have hope that one day, the people of the world will stop letting religion decide who they love or hate or hug or kill or heal or crush; when people can work together to solve greater issues in the world. Hope is one thing that we both share. Death seems to be one of the defining differences between us, however; you find it more palatable to believe that when you die, you'll float up to a wonderful, blissful heaven, where you will spend eternity. I, however, am incapable of allowing for such a luxury. Once again, I envy your faith, but cannot profess that it is possible for me to share it with you.

Excellent post.

Although, unlike you I don't envy the faith of the deluded. I would rather live in the real world rather than pin my hopes and expectations on an uncertain post-mortem existence.

[Tassman]

You asked for a non-arbitrary standard. One has been provided.

If you don't think harming others is immoral, there is probably nothing else anyone could say that would persuade you.

Indeed! Harming others is morally unacceptable because is militates against our genetically encoded values as a social species to maintain social cohesion. It's a survival thing. Cooperative, altruistic behaviour, of the sort encapsulated in the Golden Rule, is instinctive.

Why does there need to be some authority that says harming others is wrong? Would that make it somehow really wrong in your opinion? Why would that be? I imagine you might say harming others is wrong because God says so or because it goes against God's nature or something like that. I could further ask you "Why does God saying so make something right or wrong?" Or "why does God's nature determine morality?" At some point you will get to the place where you can provide no further justification. One can always ask why such and such is a standard no matter what standard is chosen, whether theistic or otherwise. At some point one must stop.

It seems to me that adding God into the mix only further complicates the issue, rather than helping. For then you must also try to determine God's will or nature, something about which even Christians disagree significantly. Christians believing in the same God and bible disagree about many significant moral issues today: abortion, capital punishment, birth-control, stem-cell research, homosexuality, Sabbath observance, alcohol use, etc. This is not to mention the disagreements with other theistic systems such as Islam, where some adherents think god wants them to kill everyone who disagrees with them. Does having a god who somehow provides the basis for morality really help resolve these issues?

Exactly and this is where seer always comes unstuck. He can never specify what God’s laws are – merely what he, seer, thinks they are. As you rightly say:

“Christians believing in the same God and bible disagree about many significant moral issues today: abortion, capital punishment, birth-control, stem-cell research, homosexuality, Sabbath observance, alcohol use, etc.”

And they have ALWAYS disagreed, regardless of the issues of the day such as, in the past things like slavery, the subjugation of women and racial discrimination. This is surely the strongest argument against God’s so-called absolute moral code. If no one, not even Christians, can agree upon what it is then it’s totally useless at best and a cause for conflict at worst.

[Darth Executor]

Indeed! Harming others is morally unacceptable because is militates against our genetically encoded values as a social species to maintain social cohesion. It's a survival thing. Cooperative, altruistic behaviour, of the sort encapsulated in the Golden Rule, is instinctive.

If it was instinctive this conversation wouldn't exist and we wouldn't have countless wars and massacres to look back upon. The reality is that this is bogus fantasy of the most absurd kind. The standard instinct is to do what you can to benefit your in-group whereas what you should do to outgroups depends on circumstances. Sometimes killing or enslaving them is beneficial to you, which is why sometimes people, and other apes, beat and kill each other.

Even if we presumed genetic uniformity that just so happen to match Tassman's moral values, there is no reason why one has a moral obligation to follow one's genetic programming.

[MaxVel]

Maybe in your opinion, but I disagree. Let me be quite clear that in my world life is not so meaningless that God the right to take it away if he happens to feel like it.

Except that God never does anything without a good reason. You're implying that God might take someone's life away on a whim, or arbitrarily. I submit that that is a false conception of God, more akin to the Greek gods than God as classical theism conceives Him.

To each other we have meaning. We give each other meaning. What we do, who we love, has an impact, and therefore a meaning on other sentient beings (okay, I am saying the same thing, but it seems to take a lot for it to penetrate). And therefore if you kill another sentient being that has meaning too. It is wrong because it has a bad impact on other people. Like slavery has a bad impact, so it is wrong.

So is slavery wrong for everyone, even those who it doesn't have a bad impact on (such as those who profit from slavery)?

The bottomline is that I have tried to convey to you why murder is necessarily wrong, and time and again you have failed to get it. I think that that is a sad indictment of your Christian morality.

Possibly seer doesn't think that your reasoning holds up in your worldview....? I'm pretty sure that he thinks murder is wrong, but that doesn't mean that your worldview supports your position.

Worse still, your position is clearly incoherent. You say murder is wrong because God says it is wrong, and yet you seem to know that slavery is wrong too, despite the Bible promoting it. You claim to follow Jesus' teachings and example, but still live a life of comparative luxury.

I think you're wrong. Seer might not be living according to his beliefs - then he would be inconsistent, or worse, a hypocrite. But from that possible fact it doesn't follow that there's a problem with the beliefs themselves.

Oh, and you have a few (typical atheistic) misconceptions about Christianity.

[The Pixie]

Nope... Unless it made a difference to God...

So in your world view human life is meaningless.

In my world view human life has meaning to humans.

[The Pixie]

Because we are to give up "all" we have and follow the itinerant rabbi around Judea, Samaria, and wherever he may choose to go

I was replying to seer who said he followed Jesus' commands and example. His command was to give up "all" if you want to follow him, and that was the example he made. If you want to be able to honestly claim "In the mean time, as a Christian, I'm explicitly called to follow the teachings and example of Christ" then yes.

Protip: you can't extrapolate everything as a universal command.

That is my point. What seer is claiming to do is to use the Bible as a moral foundation. The reality is, as you point out, that people do not do that. They do not take "everything as a universal command". They pick and choose what they think is right.

And that means that seer's morality really is based on what he thinks is right and wrong, and not what the Bible says is right and wrong. Just like atheists.

[Paprika]

I was replying to seer who said he followed Jesus' commands and example. His command was to give up "all" if you want to follow him, and that was the example he made.

Where is this "command"? Who was it addressed to?

[The Pixie]

Except that God never does anything without a good reason. You're implying that God might take someone's life away on a whim, or arbitrarily. I submit that that is a false conception of God, more akin to the Greek gods than God as classical theism conceives Him.

What counts as a good reason? Because he feels like? God is God, afterall, and what he feels like would seem to be a great reason to do something. Hey, maybe he wants a new species to worship him (a more reliable one), so he wants to get rid of the human race first. That would be a good reason right? It is not that different to what God did at the Flood anyway. God decided the world would be better if he pretty much started again, so wiped out almost all the world's population, children, babies and all. That that is fine, because human life is meaningless compatred to what what God wants.

So is slavery wrong for everyone, even those who it doesn't have a bad impact on (such as those who profit from slavery)?

Yes.

Possibly seer doesn't think that your reasoning holds up in your worldview....? I'm pretty sure that he thinks murder is wrong, but that doesn't mean that your worldview supports your position.

Yes, I agree.

Apparently seer thinks murder is wrong because God says it is wrong. For seer, if God says murder is fine in some situations, such as bashing Babylonian kids against rocks, then in those cases murder is morally right.

The think is that his worldview is not consistent. He thinks murder is wrong because God says it is wrong. He thinks slavery is wrong, even though God says it is fine.

I think you're wrong. Seer might not be living according to his beliefs - then he would be inconsistent, or worse, a hypocrite. But from that possible fact it doesn't follow that there's a problem with the beliefs themselves.

Not sure I quite get this, so I will just try to explain what I mean. What seer is claiming is that he bases his morally on God via the Bible (as I understand it). <y point is that actually he is not doing that consistently. He does it for something, but not for others. Specifically, he does it for murder, but not for slavery. He claims "In the mean time, as a Christian, I'm explicitly called to follow the teachings and example of Christ", but is not (with respect to giving up all property).

Oh, and you have a few (typical atheistic) misconceptions about Christianity.

Protip: If you do not tell people what their misconceptions are, they will not change them.

[whag]

Except that God never does anything without a good reason.

Except if you're going to evangelize, which is what your ultimate Christian responsibility is, you should be more empathetic. Perhaps Pixies's sister lost a child in a miscarriage (which seems like an arbitrary taking). There are a thousand circumstances that could cause him to struggle with the concept of death. You never know these things, and general platitudes like "God always takes life for good reason" is prosaic twaddle that doesn't help. I think deep down you know that.

You're implying that God might take someone's life away on a whim, or arbitrarily. I submit that that is a false conception of God, more akin to the Greek gods than God as classical theism conceives Him.

Or Job even. You have to cite the hard examples to strengthen your responses and anticipate the replies if you want to be effective. Job's children are taken away because of a wager between God and Satan, which has all the hallmarks of the anthropomorphic whimsy of Greek theology. Anticipate and be thoughtful; don't just react with shallow boilerplate.

I think you're wrong. Seer might not be living according to his beliefs - then he would be inconsistent, or worse, a hypocrite. But from that possible fact it doesn't follow that there's a problem with the beliefs themselves.

Oh, and you have a few (typical atheistic) misconceptions about Christianity.

And you have a long way to go with evangelism, which is your ultimate purpose. Seer presented the idea very crudely because he himself is struggling with how nature has unfolded and operates (that is obvious) and it's led to this crapshow. Be helpful.

[Kelp(p)]

Indeed it does. This has been the standard tribal practice for millennia. We saw it among the tribal Israelites (e.g. the genocide of the Amorites) and we see it in ISIS today. But in a shrinking world tribalism has no place. In effect the planet is becoming just one, worldwide "tribe". Not for much longer can we have in-groups and an out-groups fighting each other to the death if we are to survive as a species.

You're missing Darth's point. Your argument is that murder is wrong because it goes against our evolutionary programming to help one another. Then, Darth points out that slaughtering an out-group is sometimes a good idea for one's own group and thus in line with the evolutionary imperative to survive.

Your response to that makes it sound like murder only became wrong once globalization started eliminating more and more boundaries.

[Tassman]

You're missing Darth's point. Your argument is that murder is wrong because it goes against our evolutionary programming to help one another. Then, Darth points out that slaughtering an out-group is sometimes a good idea for one's own group and thus in line with the evolutionary imperative to survive.

Your response to that makes it sound like murder only became wrong once globalization started eliminating more and more boundaries.

within the tribe. Outsiders were always considered fair game. Indeed the Tribal God of the Israelites commanded it. And yes, the elimination of boundaries results in tribal loyalties expanding globally.

Even if we presumed genetic uniformity that just so happen to match Tassman's moral values, there is no reason why one has a moral obligation to follow one's genetic programming.

True! We don't have a "moral obligation" to follow one's genetic programming, but we generally do. E.g. You don't have a moral obligation to nurture your children or defend your territory and community - but one usually does. It's instinctive. One doesn't need a deity to tell you these things - even if the different Christian sects can agree on what God wants.