Originally Posted by RayA75
I can't speak for anything but my own religious beliefs. As a Catholic, I believe that all humans are created with dignity and should be treated with equal respect. I believe that all of us are as flawed as each other, but the amount that we try to fix our errs is what makes one objectively holy or not. No one is better than anyone because of their beliefs. I don't know that much about any other religion, so I can't speak for them, much less Christianity of a whole.
Why do you consider us flawed?Why can't it be just different?If you've studied some biology,you'd notice how lucky we are to be in this evolved state,we evolved from some bacteria goddamit.You are true,that no one is different from another according to beliefs.But,when a relegions comes and defines what is morally good,and what you "should" do to enter "heaven".Isn't that trying to diffrentiate people according to what the "Bible" considers a good.Yes,it doesn't force you to abide by their rules,but if you don't.You are a bad bad person who deserves to rot in hell.And,I want to say again,that I don't believe in anything being morally good.It is simply something to please a whole society.I would like more explanation from you on how something should be defined as morally good according to you.In,your case I believe your relegion is what defines this stuff,but I don't want to make generalizations.
What makes it a story? Because it was written 1900 years ago? Because you think it has flaws? Please explain, and demonstrate your flaws, I'd like to try and refute them
As far as I know it is still not 100percent proven.In addition,did you know that the Bible has been modified several times to fit the views of the people who were in charge at that time(yeah,i'm talking about the corrupted church).This mere fact would make me not trust this book at all.Yes,history might reinforce the Bible,and isn't it only normal since the people who wrote it were living at that time,and were highly educated people?Furthermore,I'm sure that if I research I will be able to find flaws in the stuff related to the history and the bible.I'd like to demonstrate some flaws when I remember them,for now I'd like your replies.
a
Why do you consider us flawed?Why can't it be just different?If you've studied some biology,you'd notice how lucky we are to be in this evolved state,we evolved from some bacteria goddamit.
I consider us flawed because we are not morally perfect. We cannot all be perfectly honest, we all cannot be perfectly charitable, and so on. Also, I haven't studied much biology, but I do accept evolution as the most logical theory (basically making it a fact). This doesn't contradict my beliefs because the Church teaches about Genesis is that it is of religious truth, not necessarily historical or scientific. I swear I said that somewhere in here already
You are true,that no one is different from another according to beliefs.But,when a relegions comes and defines what is morally good,and what you "should" do to enter "heaven".Isn't that trying to diffrentiate people according to what the "Bible" considers a good.Yes,it doesn't force you to abide by their rules,but if you don't.You are a bad bad person who deserves to rot in hell.
I believe that hell isn't a place you are sent to. I think it is a state of being in which you are separated from who your soul is destined to be united with. That is a pain that is unrivaled.
And,I want to say again,that I don't believe in anything being morally good.It is simply something to please a whole society.I would like more explanation from you on how something should be defined as morally good according to you.In,your case I believe your relegion is what defines this stuff,but I don't want to make generalizations.
I believe that laws made by government should simply be moral, because the government and society is secular. I live in the US. Our court system is just (for the most part), and our democracy is working the way it was made to, even if I don't agree with the side in power.
As far as I know it is still not 100percent proven.In addition,did you know that the Bible has been modified several times to fit the views of the people who were in charge at that time(yeah,i'm talking about the corrupted church).
The bible was originally translated from the fustercluck of languages it was originally assembled in by St. Jerome in the 4th century into latin. From then on, it was translated into other languages, and for different denominations when the Protestant Reformation occurred. The translation was not modified by the Church. Popes, such as Rodrigo Borgia, have been corrupted. He specifically had numerous illegitimate children, and neglected his position. But, he did not use his power as Pope to perform any evil acts, or blaspheme.
This mere fact would make me not trust this book at all.Yes,history might reinforce the Bible,and isn't it only normal since the people who wrote it were living at that time,and were highly educated people?
Cite your source, and give me examples of how history reinforces the bible. And many who wrote the bible weren't necessarily educated. The apostles were fishermen.
Furthermore,I'm sure that if I research I will be able to find flaws in the stuff related to the history and the bible.I'd like to demonstrate some flaws when I remember them,for now I'd like your replies.
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We could technically perceive transcendental things, we could just not understand/prove them.
Considering the existance of a transcendence to be true can be rather contraproductive simply because it is very hard to get to one base everyone agrees on.
And that is because god cannot be defined properly. We can only define his actions as in “he made this and then he proceeded to make that” etc etc.
The problem with that is that it creates a fault for people who try to understand our existance but do not want to look any further. God does not need a cause, he just is there and always was. The universe, of course, needs a cause.
Do not judge non-believers.
Kill them instead.
You could probably interpret it differently or call it out of context (dunno if it is out of context) but one can in general say that if the bible is so poorly worded that it depends on proper interpretation rather than defining itself it is flawed and very prone to getting missunderstood.
If it has been translated incorrectly a million times you can't even use it as source for anything, not even your own beliefs so this whole discussion is redundant (huehuehuhe) unless we all learn whatever the bible has been written in first and then discuss everything in that language.
We cannot be morally perfect because everyone has his own morals and ethical code.
There is no such thing as universal morals, and if there are, prove it. Aztecs sacrificed people to their gods in order to please them while the bible condemns such actions (as far as I know). The point is that the aztecs thought they were RIGHT when they did that. God did not give them the feeling that they did something wrong.
Same with nazis killing all the jews, white people enslaving black people, etc etc.
There are many examples so if this one does not work I will find another one.
And there comes the next problem: The age of this religion.
If the christian faith is around 1700 years old that means that all the people who previously lived did not follow the right religion and were vastly missinformed if christianity is the right religion. They did not eat what they are supposed to eat, they did not live how they were supposed to live, they did not marry who they were supposed to marry (they just had sex).
I mean, we agreed that the theory of evolution is true. That means some species gave birth to some being that could be called the first human being (in theory) and until someone created the concept of morals etc they were rather clueless about what to do.
Also, how'd you define heaven? We know now that there is no heaven above the sky but space and random spaceobjects.
And why do you think there is such a thing in the first place. The bible is no proper source and something you can rely on would be nice.
Considering the existance of a transcendence to be true can be rather contraproductive simply because it is very hard to get to one base everyone agrees on.
And that is because god cannot be defined properly. We can only define his actions as in “he made this and then he proceeded to make that” etc etc.
The problem with that is that it creates a fault for people who try to understand our existance but do not want to look any further. God does not need a cause, he just is there and always was. The universe, of course, needs a cause.
Deuteronomy 13
Do not judge non-believers.
Kill them instead.
You could probably interpret it differently or call it out of context (dunno if it is out of context) but one can in general say that if the bible is so poorly worded that it depends on proper interpretation rather than defining itself it is flawed and very prone to getting missunderstood.
If it has been translated incorrectly a million times you can't even use it as source for anything, not even your own beliefs so this whole discussion is redundant (huehuehuhe) unless we all learn whatever the bible has been written in first and then discuss everything in that language.
We cannot be morally perfect because everyone has his own morals and ethical code.
There is no such thing as universal morals, and if there are, prove it. Aztecs sacrificed people to their gods in order to please them while the bible condemns such actions (as far as I know). The point is that the aztecs thought they were RIGHT when they did that. God did not give them the feeling that they did something wrong.
Same with nazis killing all the jews, white people enslaving black people, etc etc.
There are many examples so if this one does not work I will find another one.
And there comes the next problem: The age of this religion.
If the christian faith is around 1700 years old that means that all the people who previously lived did not follow the right religion and were vastly missinformed if christianity is the right religion. They did not eat what they are supposed to eat, they did not live how they were supposed to live, they did not marry who they were supposed to marry (they just had sex).
I mean, we agreed that the theory of evolution is true. That means some species gave birth to some being that could be called the first human being (in theory) and until someone created the concept of morals etc they were rather clueless about what to do.
Also, how'd you define heaven? We know now that there is no heaven above the sky but space and random spaceobjects.
And why do you think there is such a thing in the first place. The bible is no proper source and something you can rely on would be nice.
How are you?
Originally Posted by Redundant
We could technically perceive transcendental things, we could just not understand/prove them.
Considering the existance of a transcendence to be true can be rather contraproductive simply because it is very hard to get to one base everyone agrees on.
And that is because god cannot be defined properly. We can only define his actions as in “he made this and then he proceeded to make that” etc etc.
The problem with that is that it creates a fault for people who try to understand our existance but do not want to look any further. God does not need a cause, he just is there and always was. The universe, of course, needs a cause.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islamism define God as an omnicient, omnipresent and omnipotent super natural being; who is also all good, all just and all merciful. This interpretation of God comes from The Old Testament, and not only interpretated from his actions but of revelation from his prophets. The need of an omnipotent, omnipresent creator is also proved by rationalistic arguments, such as that of Aquinas and Mortimer Adler
Deuteronomy 13
Do not judge non-believers.
Kill them instead.
You could probably interpret it differently or call it out of context (dunno if it is out of context) but one can in general say that if the bible is so poorly worded that it depends on proper interpretation rather than defining itself it is flawed and very prone to getting missunderstood.
If it has been translated incorrectly a million times you can't even use it as source for anything, not even your own beliefs so this whole discussion is redundant (huehuehuhe) unless we all learn whatever the bible has been written in first and then discuss everything in that language.
That is very true. That is the reason why there are so many Christian (and muslim, but I am not so sure) denominations. Every respective denomination and The Church has its own interpretation.
We cannot be morally perfect because everyone has his own morals and ethical code.
There is no such thing as universal morals, and if there are, prove it. Aztecs sacrificed people to their gods in order to please them while the bible condemns such actions (as far as I know). The point is that the aztecs thought they were RIGHT when they did that. God did not give them the feeling that they did something wrong.
I believe in moral universalism to an extent, due to the fact that one's conscience is heavily influenced by his upbringing and belief. But, the Aztecs' polytheistic religion contradicted their conscience and they believed it regardless.
Same with nazis killing all the jews, white people enslaving black people, etc etc.
Not at all. The nazis killed the Jews because they believed that they could make the perfect human through (un) natural selection, and that the Jews were the farthest from the Perfdct human. That is their scientific beliefs contradicting morals. Whites enslaved blacks because they denied te slaves their right to freedom and treated them as property.
There are many examples so if this one does not work I will find another one.
And there comes the next problem: The age of this religion.
If the christian faith is around 1700 years old that means that all the people who previously lived did not follow the right religion and were vastly missinformed if christianity is the right religion. They did not eat what they are supposed to eat, they did not live how they were supposed to live, they did not marry who they were supposed to marry (they just had sex).
I mean, we agreed that the theory of evolution is true. That means some species gave birth to some being that could be called the first human being (in theory) and until someone created the concept of morals etc they were rather clueless about what to do.
Just as people who do not know about Christianity today, they did not have the opportunity. Thay cannot be held against them.
Also, how'd you define heaven? We know now that there is no heaven above the sky but space and random spaceobjects.
And why do you think there is such a thing in the first place. The bible is no proper source and something you can rely on would be nice.
Heaven is simply fulfillment of the soul. It is supernatural, and cannot be perceived, just like how souls are supernatural. What I rely on is the interpretation of the bible by the church magisterium, and sacred tradition of the church.
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The thing about universal morals is that we see the world as it is, and the world as it should be.
The truth is, we do not even need morals to explain things, morals are just a basic concept of altruism which we need to survive. For example:
Animal A is together with its family, sees some sort of threat and warns the others so they all flee together.
The animal possibly does it without any conscious reason. It may be instinct, but that instinct helps it survive, mainly because probably most of his kind have similar genes as his and will therefore act the same. The human being is not a super intelligent species that can fight his instincts either. We all act according to them because instincts are way stronger than our conscious mind.
The thing now is, that the instincts we follow often are not morally correct. There is a thing called egoism. Most people are egoistic. Life is a competition, we live in a capitalistic world. Many people are aware of the poverty in Africa but don't give a flying fuck and continue with whatever they do.
Sure, there is a thing called remorse. But, we do not only have a bad feeling about moral decisions, sometimes you get that feeling when you buy something you thought will be awesome but when you purchased it it wasn't really worth it, so you have a bad feeling about it and regret your action.
For some reason I do not buy that statement, simply because it seems like a rather blunt “goddidit” interpretation.
We have a remorse because god made it so we bla…
That is a rather poor attempt to explain the true nature of things because it does not really help us understand anything. We have many great scientists working on problems we do not understand yet. That truly helps us understand the human nature.
Now let us take a look at the so called proofs for the existence of god by Thomas Aquinas.
That statement is based on an assumption that has yet to be proven.
We do not know if there needs to be an infinite series of movers.
And we cannot randomly go ahead and assume that god is immune to that kind of regression.
Even if we go ahead and use god as explanation and start point for that regression, I do not think it could be used as proof for the characteristics the Christian god is ought to have. Omnipotence, benevolence, omniscience etc are all not necessary to be some sort of mover
Omniscience and omnipotence are paradox in the first place. When you are omniscient you know what is going to happen, when you know what is going to happen you have no free will and do not have the power to change the future. Therefore you are not omnipotent.
I find it very hard to believe that people call that a proof for the existence of god.
I can make the same argument with all sorts of thing.
Soda tastes good, there are greater sodas and lesser sodas, therefore there must be one truly magnificent soda and that soda is god.
okay…
We already have proven that evolution is a fact, natural selection is pretty much a proven theory based on that fact etc.
We do not know what the cause for existence itself is…yet. Being satisfied but that kind of statement is very lame and does not help us in any form.
We need to be curious to discover new things. That argument tells us to be happy with what we know. A typical “goddidit” statement.
From what I see religion is the search for and worshiping of chasms in knowledge that have not been scientifically explained so far. Which is very funny to me, because rather than trying to explain things we do not know with something supernatural we cannot possibly comprehend we should rather try and learn to understand the world we live in.
About the nazi ideology: I doubt you believe what you just said yourself.
The nazis did not want to kill the jews and other races solely to form a superior race. They hated them with all their might, ideologically.
There are many ideologies that contradict our morals.
For example, slavery used to be perfectly normal and fine and hardly anyone challenged that idea until they learned that black people, who have been thought to be lesser creatures, are no lesser creatures but people too.
I mean, we eat animals and for most people it is perfectly fine, even though there are millions of animals being kept in rather cruel ways. And even when they are kept nicely, in the end they get killed for us to consume. If god made animals for us to consume, why did he give them the ability to feel pain? Sounds very lame to me.
If we have to rely on the bible to comprehend anything we are doomed, as I explained in my previous post.
It is also not very satisfying to believe in a supernatural soul that cannot be percieved in any way, shape or form.
We just have to assume it is… there…somewhere
/me pokes own head
blah
The truth is, we do not even need morals to explain things, morals are just a basic concept of altruism which we need to survive. For example:
Animal A is together with its family, sees some sort of threat and warns the others so they all flee together.
The animal possibly does it without any conscious reason. It may be instinct, but that instinct helps it survive, mainly because probably most of his kind have similar genes as his and will therefore act the same. The human being is not a super intelligent species that can fight his instincts either. We all act according to them because instincts are way stronger than our conscious mind.
The thing now is, that the instincts we follow often are not morally correct. There is a thing called egoism. Most people are egoistic. Life is a competition, we live in a capitalistic world. Many people are aware of the poverty in Africa but don't give a flying fuck and continue with whatever they do.
Sure, there is a thing called remorse. But, we do not only have a bad feeling about moral decisions, sometimes you get that feeling when you buy something you thought will be awesome but when you purchased it it wasn't really worth it, so you have a bad feeling about it and regret your action.
Thomas Aquinas explains (as does Aristotle) that nothing in nature exists without a purpose, and that the sense of buyer’s remorse is that it was implanted in our nature because we have both the capacity for and the intellectual need for the infinite–which is God. Nothing but infinite good can satisfy our thirst for more. Thomas saw this natural longing for the infinite as tangible proof for an infinite “end” which is God and a final state for mankind, which is happiness.
For some reason I do not buy that statement, simply because it seems like a rather blunt “goddidit” interpretation.
We have a remorse because god made it so we bla…
That is a rather poor attempt to explain the true nature of things because it does not really help us understand anything. We have many great scientists working on problems we do not understand yet. That truly helps us understand the human nature.
Now let us take a look at the so called proofs for the existence of god by Thomas Aquinas.
Proof for the existence of god
That statement is based on an assumption that has yet to be proven.
We do not know if there needs to be an infinite series of movers.
And we cannot randomly go ahead and assume that god is immune to that kind of regression.
Even if we go ahead and use god as explanation and start point for that regression, I do not think it could be used as proof for the characteristics the Christian god is ought to have. Omnipotence, benevolence, omniscience etc are all not necessary to be some sort of mover
Omniscience and omnipotence are paradox in the first place. When you are omniscient you know what is going to happen, when you know what is going to happen you have no free will and do not have the power to change the future. Therefore you are not omnipotent.
Moar proof
I find it very hard to believe that people call that a proof for the existence of god.
I can make the same argument with all sorts of thing.
Soda tastes good, there are greater sodas and lesser sodas, therefore there must be one truly magnificent soda and that soda is god.
okay…
even moar proof
We already have proven that evolution is a fact, natural selection is pretty much a proven theory based on that fact etc.
We do not know what the cause for existence itself is…yet. Being satisfied but that kind of statement is very lame and does not help us in any form.
We need to be curious to discover new things. That argument tells us to be happy with what we know. A typical “goddidit” statement.
From what I see religion is the search for and worshiping of chasms in knowledge that have not been scientifically explained so far. Which is very funny to me, because rather than trying to explain things we do not know with something supernatural we cannot possibly comprehend we should rather try and learn to understand the world we live in.
About the nazi ideology: I doubt you believe what you just said yourself.
The nazis did not want to kill the jews and other races solely to form a superior race. They hated them with all their might, ideologically.
There are many ideologies that contradict our morals.
For example, slavery used to be perfectly normal and fine and hardly anyone challenged that idea until they learned that black people, who have been thought to be lesser creatures, are no lesser creatures but people too.
I mean, we eat animals and for most people it is perfectly fine, even though there are millions of animals being kept in rather cruel ways. And even when they are kept nicely, in the end they get killed for us to consume. If god made animals for us to consume, why did he give them the ability to feel pain? Sounds very lame to me.
Heaven is simply fulfillment of the soul. It is supernatural, and cannot be perceived, just like how souls are supernatural. What I rely on is the interpretation of the bible by the church magisterium, and sacred tradition of the church.
If we have to rely on the bible to comprehend anything we are doomed, as I explained in my previous post.
It is also not very satisfying to believe in a supernatural soul that cannot be percieved in any way, shape or form.
We just have to assume it is… there…somewhere
/me pokes own head
blah
How are you?
