MayfieldFan

I'm with SF, would gladly pay more in taxes to get universal healthcare and college tuition. I already have these things but think they would be good for the country. Glad to make the sacrifice.

In truth though, Bernie won't get any of that stuff done. None of the candidates will get anything done. Nothing. Not a single thing. Congress is broken broken broken beyond repair. Country is divided hopelessly.

So I support Bernie because he is the only decent human being among the bunch. Cruz and Trump and HRC are horrible people.

My two cents.

I know it doesn't mean anything, but how many states has Bernie won?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html?_r=0

I count 20 for HRC and 15 for Bernie. Those numbers include Northern Mariana Islands (huh?) for HRC and Democrats Abroad for Bernie.

I don't think Sanders winning these states was a surprise. I'm pretty sure he was expected to win.

It's a surprise if you start from the day he announced. Back when he was polling at 1 percent and Martin OMalley was thought to be the challenger. Back then, nobody, and I mean nobody, thought he could get over ten percent, much less win a single primary. He's done a lot of things nobody thought he could do, so I am hoping he can do one more and beat HRC.

Hard to pick a favorite.

George Carlin: every year putting out new material, never standing pat, always challenging himself and his audience. Very subversive, but managing to stay funny while doing so.

Mitch Hedburg/Stephen Wright: Masters of brevity

Norm McDonald: Basically think everything he does is funny, he has a Kaufman quality to him, tells bad jokes on purpose, sometimes. His special "me doing standup" is perfect. He can be perfect, when he wants to, but sometimes it doesn't appear to be his purpose, i.e. the roast of bob saget. Check out his "sportshows" on youtube.

Bill Cosby: Other than being a serial rapist, his "bill cosby himself" special is a masterpiece.

@MayfieldFan I appreciate you giving me a verse and an explanation. I disagree with our interpretation that it condones and instructs abortion. I see where you get it though. I see it more as a punishment for parents, kind of like what happened to David and Bathsheba.

 

Also I hope you know that the Old Testament is Judaism. Christianity does not live by the OT Law. Christianity believes that the old testament/written code/law of moses was nailed to the cross with Jesus. IT says that in Colossians. Since Christians believe in the New Testament, then naturally they would believe what Colossians says about this topic.

 

I'm sitting here watching the Passion of the Christ on TV. Its been about ten years or so since I saw it. I forgot how good it is.

I hope you don't see this anytime soon, (you should be in church ) but happy Easter.

I am so depressed about this and I haven't even seen the movie yet. Big Superman fan, have a tattoo lol. It just sounds like they got his character "wrong". They certainly got it wrong in Man of Steel and my hope was that they would take those events and have superman decide something like "i'll never do that again," and change into his boy scout character. Sounds like they went the other way and made him even more grim and smug. bleh.

Part of me says "go see it, it cant be that bad" the other part is saying "dont want to give my money to a bunch of corporate douches who own the rights to characters that they don't care about." MF having an internal crisis!

I am still have problems with my internet connection. I cannot access BGP on my home computer. I have no idea why. I seem to be able to access any other web site but BGP. Perhaps it is Divine intervention I finally went to another location. This is why my response has been slow in coming. I'd like to pick up where we left off...

 

You were actually the one who created the straw man when you suggested that Christians couldn’t know whether they should kill (stab) their own child or not because perhaps God would permit it. You also said that you as an atheist, could say, “Absolutely, it is wrong to stab your own child.” I then demonstrated how a Christian worldview prohibits the killing (stabbing) of one’s own child. I don’t need to rehash it here, it’s in my previous post.

 

Using a contemporary example of “stabbing one’s own child” I asked the question of whether Christianity or atheism permits abortion. I showed that the Christian worldview does not. However, many atheists agree with Richard Dawkins in saying there “is no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…” in the universe. In such a view of the universe where there is no morality, no right and wrong, no good or evil what if a person reasons that it is in his or her best interest to stab his or her child? Atheism has no rational basis to prevent it, does it?

 

I would like to hear you talk about how an atheist would reason with a woman who is about to kill (stab) her own child that is in her womb. What if she has looked at her circumstance and decided that it is in her best interest not to have a baby at this time and so she decides to terminate her pregnancy. Perhaps she has graduated law school and just got a job at a law firm. She will be working 90 hour weeks in her new position until she gets established. Her career does not allow her to tend to a baby. It just is not convenient right now. Does atheism say that she should not kill her own baby that is now residing in her womb? If so, on what basis? If atheism does permit her to kill her baby, on what basis do you conclude that it is a just and moral action?

 

I look forward to your answer.

I respect your views @oldgrappler , but basically think the opposite of you. I think the way you conceive of god and morality is immoral and, ironically, it is essentially what you attribute to atheism. I will elaborate, but to restate it a bit differently, your criticisms of atheism are misguided and actually more descriptive for the moral system you have put forward. How could that be you might be asking.....here's how.

There are two basic options. 1. Things are moral because god says they are. (that's divine command theory) OR 2. Things are moral because they are and god "chooses" them because they are moral. As I understand your previous posts, they seemed to clearly rely upon option 1, the divine command theory.

Under DC, things are not independently moral, to know morality, one must know god. God tells me to love my child. So the moral nugget is to "love your child" But loving my child is not independently moral, it needs god's say so. And, if god changes his mind, and tells me to stab my child, then it is now moral for me to do so. This strikes me as decidedly immoral situation. My child has no value, except whatever value god says he has. This divine command theory means we live in a nihilistic world, waiting for word to come down from on high.

I will grant you that DC has one benefit, and it is one that you have trumpeted, but this benefit "masks" the immorality of the whole DC setup. It has the benefit of having an "ultimate" decider. The moral arbiter you spoke of. The arbiter may change his mind, and his standards may be convoluted and indecipherable, but they would be some sort of "ultimate" standard. But that doesn't the values moral. The arbiter in this set up could be a real jerk and a dictator. His standards may be "ultimate" but not moral. His choices have absolutely nothing to recommend themselves to us but for the fact that he is powerful. Because things are not moral in and of themselves, we have no basis by which we can even judge the "morality" of god, we can only submit and hope for the best.

Now, many christians do not subscribe to DC theory. They say things are moral in and of themselves, and god "chooses" these things, and tells us to do them, because they are moral. God chooses the good so to speak. So, for example, honesty is a moral good. Independent of god. God may want to help us out, by pointing this out for us, and declaring so. But god is not making honesty moral, he is just declaring what is independently true.

Under option 2, the world we live in is filled with moral values. They may not be "ultimate" and we may not understand them, and their origins, but they exist, we live in them, and they are independent of god. So, when I say, there is no god, I am not rejecting morality. I don't need god to tell me right from wrong, I don't need him to tell me to love my children. I know my children have value without him, or his word.

You have brought this up several times, the idea that there is no morality if one does not believe. I kinda feel like your DC theory has you constantly brushing up against the idea of nihilism because under that theory, the world really is nihilistic but for what god says. So I can kinda see how you might think that letting go of that would drop one right in that type of world. But there are other ways of seeing the whole thing, even for believers and non-believers.

Here is the passage:

Numbers 5:11-31King James Version (KJV)

11 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

The lord is the one giving the instructions

12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,

13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner;

We have a suspected cheating wife here.

14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:

Husband is jealous, maybe his was defiled, maybe not. What will god tell us to do?

15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

So he brings his wife to the priest,

16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord:

and the priest brings her before the lord

17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:

18 And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:

bitter water that causeth the curse, that's the poison.

19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:

If the wife has not been defiled, then she will be free from the poison

20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:

but if you have been defiled.......

21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;

the thigh to rot and thy belly to swell. That is a miscarriage and then the destruction of the uterus.

22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.

23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:

24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.

25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the Lord, and offer it upon the altar:

26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.

27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.

again, if she is guilty of adultery, the bitter water will cause her thigh to rot and her belly to swell.

28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

In case you want to argue that hey, what does thigh to rot and belly to swell really mean? This verse makes it clear that if the woman is not defiled then she is free and can "conceive seed" The opposite result.

29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled;

30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.

31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.

Here is the NIV translation

27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28

Here is he NRSV translation

When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. 28

Now what do we call it when a women is given something that 1. causes her abdomen to swell and her womb to miscarry or 2. her womb to discharge and her uterus to drop or 3. her thigh to rot and her belly to swell? Well, I call it an abortion. If you want to call it a forced miscarriage, then fine. But is more than just a "what to do if a wife is unfaithful" For starters, it is what to do if a wife is suspected of being unfaithful. The description makes it clear that some faithful wives will go thru this. And the "what" in the "what to do" is to give her some water to make her miscarry.

Friend, you are the one that brought up Numbers chapter 5:11-31 when you were saying the Bible instructs abortion. Those verses are about what to do if a woman is accused of adultery. If she is found to be a faithful wife, then she can continue to be with her husband and build a family. It has nothing to do with a miscarriage. This was your example.

 

I am the one that brought up Exodus 21. I assumed that Exodus 21:22 was what you were trying to say was an instruction for abortion. Exodus 21:22 is the verse that talks about how to punish a man if he hits a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely. I some cases it is a fine and in some cases it is death. If no serious injury, then a fine. If death, then the man who hit her dies.

 

So could you please give me an example of the bible instructing how abortions are to be used?

The passage in numbers are instructions for how to cause a miscarriage. The instructions are in god's words. It starts with a wife suspected of being unfaithful. She is to be given bitter waters or whatever they call it. It's poison. If she has been unfaithful, then she miscarries and is made barren. If she was not unfaithful, then the poison won't affect her. So yes, it is "about what to do if a woman is accused of adultry" and what one is to do is to force her to have a miscarriage.

Are you saying Numbers 5 is appropriate punishment for someone who has caused a miscarriage?

Could you specify. I may have missed it but numbers 5:11-31 has nothing to do with abortion. Are you talking about the part where it says is (paraphrase) "a woman has been innocent of adultery then she will be allowed to conceive?"

 

Also, the examples I gave are not about what we call abortion. I was just trying to match what you were talking about with a verse.

If you want to play with words, I will oblige you and reword it. The passage is god's step by step instructions for causing a miscarriage. If you don't think intentionally causing a miscarriage is the same thing as an abortion, then ok, easier just to play along with the wordplay. God tells how to cause a miscarriage.

@PP1 there are numerous verses, at least a half dozen. Other than the ones you mention. The abortion procedure is found in Numbers 5 11-31

(here is the last installment -- third post) @Mayfield Fan

 

So we return to the issue of whether one should stab his own child or not. You said that the Christian cannot be sure. He must consult God and perhaps God will tell him to do so. In your view, this is where the Christian worldview leads. You believe the atheist position to be superior because reason tells us that absolutely no one should stab his own child.

 

I believe your conclusion to be false on both the results of the Christian view and on the results of the atheist view. First of all, the Christian worldview is based on the whole Bible and the ethic it teaches—the sacredness of each human being and so it tells us we should not kill our own child. I think the atheist position is on shakier ground here because what if a person reasons that it is in his or her best interest to stab his or her child? Atheism has no rational basis to prevent it. Let’s test this hypothesis. How many Christians can you produce who have stabbed their child? If the Bible leads Christians to conclude that God may want them to do this then there should be many ready examples of this actually occurring.

 

I’ll tell you what, for every Christian you produce who has stabbed their child I will produce a thousand secularist who have done so. It is not Christians living by the ideals of their worldview who are killing their own children. It is those who have been influenced by a secular, materialist, atheist worldview who can justify, based on their own reasoning and self-interest, the killing of their own child in the womb. The Christian worldview does not permit this because the child in the womb is made in God’s image and is sacred. Love dictates that the mother gives the child every chance as she looks out for the interests of the child not her own interests. But the atheist position allows a person to reason within themselves that it is in their best interest to kill their own child. Let’s set aside those who terminate pregnancies through incest, rape and the like. They are in an emotionally difficult place and perhaps their judgment is impaired. But what is the number of abortions that are performed each year for other reasons ranging from, “I’m too young,” to “I don’t want to interrupt my career”? Those who do this each day do not do it as a consequence of a Christian worldview. This decision is made as a consequence that each person may reason within him/herself what is in his/her best interest. This is a decision entirely consistent with an atheist, materialist, secular worldview. A Christian who makes this choice only does so in contradiction to her worldview and the ethic that Christianity provides.

 

So to understand and live by a Christian worldview one must understand Christ. Reading through the gospels one at a time and reading each one several times will allow the portrait of Christ being drawn by that particular author to be properly understood. As this is done, what will emerge from these accounts of Jesus is a life that was beautifully lived, a death that was on behalf of others, and a resurrection that demonstrates that Jesus was not only a moral example to be emulated but the means to eternal life for all who will believe.

Pretty shaky ground there. Studies have shown that christians have the most abortions. I get it, you hedged your bet by defining it not as "christians" but as "christians who are living by the ideals of their worldview." Now you are not deferring to god, you are playing god. Deciding who is, and who is not, living according to christian ideals.

Could be that they have a different christian worldview. God in the bible was pretty specific in how to perform abortions, and while that may not be YOUR view, it is certainly a reasonable interpretation to say god approves of abortions because he ordered them to be done and later gave instructions on how to do them. But if you want to believe that it is atheists who are responsible for all the abortions, in the face of the evidence that it is christians who are having them, then you are free to do so of course. It just isn't a real convincing position.

The lack of clarity and morality in the bible is proof there is no god. Bible filled with nonsense, and horrible teachings. But it truly does not matter what is in that book. Not one little bit. The only thing you are going to get from the bible is what you put into it. That holds true for matters of salvation, eternal life, child-stabbing, slavery, abortion, homosexuality, murder, rape, jealously, justice, morality, etc.

@oldgrappler Some good posts, a quick response before work duties. I may come back to the posts, but the quick one now.

You are setting up your own straw man to argue against. I am not saying christians don't know they should not stab their children. I am saying they have to defer to god to know it, at least under the "moral arbiter" (divine command) theory you stated.

But you say, well then, where are the christian child stabbers? Here is what happens. Everyone knows you should not stab children. I accept that there is no god, but I also know I should not stab my children. You believe there is a god, and you also know you should not stab your children. But you then have to open up the bible and come up with a reason for not stabbing your children, (which is in your post, about sacredness of life) and then...viola! God believes that you should not stab your children! (you just have to ignore the part where god tells a dude to stab his child).

That's essentially what is happening. We all know not to stab the children, so the lack of christian child stabbers doesn't mean anything, simply not relevant.

Thought exercise of proof. This is a thought exercise. Pretend for a second you just learned there is no god. Would you go out and stab your kids, rape people, kill them, and rob them? Would you want to do that? The answer is no. You would be the same person. Just like the rest of us atheists who don't do any of that stuff.

This is not as fun as last year where some fans didn't take us seriously. I still chuckle thinking back at a few comments last year "like this isn't 1A". I doubt I will get to enjoy much if any of that this year. Reminds me a lot of the fun we had in the first several meetings with Beechwood and many of the Northern Kentuckians.

This. Soooooooooo much talk before the season even. Had to set a record. My favorite were the dozens of posts about how "nasty" the Desales' defense was. Just loved describing the defense as "nasty." Wanna review lol? The defense is nasty. This isn't 1A anymore. Maybe we have too many players going both ways. We might get an injury. They have played teams better than us. Western Kentucky is not the same as Jefferson county. And so on. Every thread a gazillion pages long. And then what happened? Well, apparently not only did we beat them, but we knocked their internet out as well, because there was precious little crow-eating. I agree, it was so much fun.

Friend, I really wonder if you read what I post. Please go back and read the first two words in Hebrews 11:17. It should be listed above.

 

I thought your point was that Christians were lunatics that just followed whatever they were taught without trying to find answers out for themselves. Since multiple Christians have different views on scripture, it should tell you that we study and take different perspectives on issues.

 

BTW there are several types of Atheists out there with different viewpoints on the creation of the world, the evolution of man, morality, the development of love, the necessity of religion, the absurdity of society and hopelessness of living, and several other things. Would it be correct for me to say "The only thing you atheists can agree on is that there is not God. You cannot even decide what your own doctrine is."

Yes, that would be exactly correct. There is no god. That's all it is. No books, no doctrines, no anything else. The rest is all up to each individual.

Yes, I read Hebrews 11. Which is not the Abraham story. The story itself is in genesis.

The Abraham thing is intriguing to me. I think that Abraham knew that he was going to be stopped by God or God was going to bring Isaac back from the dead.

 

Hebrews 11 reads...

"17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[a] 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death"

 

I have often wondered what Abraham actually knew and what he did not know.

So @oldgrappler says the story of Abraham "teaches lessons of faith." Ignoring the trees for the forest, if you will. Ignoring the specific, and horrible, elements of the story, and instead focusing on what is alleged to be the point of the story, though one should wonder what sort of god would use such a bad story to make such a point.

You take a different route. You suppose, or imagine, that the story is not horrible at all, because you suppose Abraham knew god would either stop him or raise his son from the dead. Abraham was calling god's bluff, so to speak. The classic version of the story was that Abraham's faith was so strong that he was willing to kill his son. You undercut that completely by saying Abraham was not willing to kill his son, but he was willing to stab him in the belief that god would raise him from the dead.

Between the two of you, you make my point over and over. The bible is an empty vessel into which you pour your beliefs, and then you each deceive yourself into believing the beliefs were there to start with. Thus the conflict between what the story means to each of you (though neither of you even begin to address it from the son's point of view).

It's not that hard to decipher. It's a story where a father tells his son to walk up to the altar. The son says "hey where is the lamb?" and the father says "surprise, it's you." Ties him up and gets ready to stab him. It's a basic story about a deranged father. Teasing the meaning out is only hard when you start with the conclusion that there is a loving god that exists who wants us to learn something from this story.

Several posts about re-reading books: Here are a few I re-read regularly (Every year or so for most)

The Godfather

Catch-22

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Good Omens

Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books.

In your criticism of the Christian worldview you use particular passages of Scripture that you feel are troublesome for the Christian. One of these is the Abraham story and his willingness to offer Isaac. I have noticed in your citing of Scripture that you don’t seem to grasp the purpose of a passage or why it appears where it does and what it means in relation to the whole. In reading any literature, the particular is to be interpreted in light of the message of the whole. ................ In citing the Abraham story you conclude that the text teaches the Christian that it may be all right to stab your own child to death. But what Christian reaches that conclusion from reading this story? I know of no one. It is understood in the broader context of the Abrahamic story and the lessons of faith it is teaching. ..........................

 

(to be continued in another post)

Thanks for the reply. However, the positions you are refuting are not the points I was trying to make. So, in the service of clarity....

If there was a god, who could create all this, then he most certainly would not do horrible things like ask a man to stab his son for any reason, including as a test of faith. It is a horrible story, involving the torture of a child. No god would do that. That you read it as a wonderful story about "faith" merely makes one of my overall points: that people create god in their own image. You are stuck with the story, and you are a reasonable person, so you must "gloss over" the stuff where the child is tortured and make it into a story about faith. The vulgarity of the story is proof that there is no god.

The other point is that when one surrenders morality to god, then one pretty much has to surrender it. If a guy today in 2016 stabs his son to death, and then claims god told him to do it, the ONLY basis that you could say it was a bad thing is to believe that god did not tell him to do it. You yourself, have no basis to judge his actions other than to defer to god. I don't share that, and I can say without any equivocation that stabbing your son to death is bad.

The rest of your post, which I did not copy, misses the mark badly, claiming, very eloquently, that there is no morality without god. This is not the case, and there is absolutely no moral value articulated in the bible that was not articulated earlier by other cultures and religions.

You also make some rather dubious claims about the bible affirming the equality of all "men." Good that you used "men" given that so many women still are afforded second class treatment based on biblical principles. And the slavery in the bible sort of undercuts this idea, as well as the "god's chosen people" stuff. Are people who are not "god's chosen people" equal? They sure weren't treated equally by god in the bible. Yet another example of you, a reasonable person, creating god in your image. You want people to be equal. So your god must want the same thing. But it takes some extraordinary convoluted interpretations to get there.

If god existed, his book would be better,...period. You would not have to dance around these horrible stories of murder, rape, slavery, genocide, animal sacrifice, human sacrifice and inconsistencies within the text. Bible is the best proof that god does not exist.

salisbury steak "recipe" (I wing stuff, so everything approximate)

2.5 pounds ground beef. I mix in one of those onion soup things, and half to 2/3 of "pringle" type "can" of bread crumbs, half a cup of milk, mix it all up and then form into patties. dip em in flour and then fry them in a skillet on each side to get that "crust". Stack them in slow cooker.

Saute some sliced mushrooms and onions. in a bowl, pour one of those cardboard things of beef broth. Add cream of mushroom soup, and cream of chicken soup, and the mushrooms and onions and one of those mixes of aujus. Some worchestire sauce too. mix it all up, pour it in slow cooker. 4 hrs on high.

I will try to be especially aware if my ears start burning.

My second installment:

 

Now, you asked me about the scenario I raised and tweaked slightly by you in which a brutal man, who at the end of his life repents of his evil, and the good woman, who is only given the opportunity to read the Quran and therefore could not exercise faith in Jesus before she died. The question you pose is, will the evil man if he repents on his death bed go to heaven and will the woman who was mistreated, yet acted sacrificially towards others, go to hell because she didn’t have the opportunity to hear the gospel? This outcome would not entail justice, in your view.

 

On the Christian worldview, there is morality and justice in the universe because God created the universe in a way that is consistent with His nature. He is the moral arbiter and He is the One to whom all humans will give an account. Whether the evil man with a “death-bed conversion” goes to heaven, or whether the good woman who does not have the opportunity to believe in Jesus goes to hell is not mine to decide. You may ask my opinion on the outcome but ultimately, it is not my decision. There IS ultimate morality and justice in the universe because there is a God who created all things and who upholds the standard. If this God actually exists, which we are allowed to assume because I am answering according to my Christian worldview, He will have the final say and you can be sure “the Judge of all the earth will do what is right.” He requires humans to act justly and with mercy in this world.

 

Consider this Bible passage, Romans 2:5-16:

But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: 7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, 9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; 10 but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.

12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

 

So to summarize. In the atheist view of the world, the best we can hope for is that humans will sometimes act justly and do the right thing. Often this will not happen, the bad guy will win, and the good person will suffer. But that is just life in a random universe, and a world that emerged by chance and is sorted out through natural selection. There really is no ultimate morality or justice.

 

But for the Christian, even when there is no justice in this life and the bad person takes advantage of the good person without any negative consequence, it is not yet over. All humans will stand before the Judge. He will hold them accountable for every action. And He will do what is right, and just, and moral. Sometimes this will include grace and sometimes it will be wrath. It is the Moral Law-giver who decides. This is by definition a moral and just universe.

I think you have very accurately stated the "standard." But there is nothing moral about it. Sounds like the "divine command" theory. God decides what is right, what is wrong, what is just. Under this theory, there is no right or wrong, but for what god says. Murder is wrong because god says so, not because it is wrong in and of itself.

If murder is wrong in and of itself, then we don't need god to tell us murder is wrong, we can figure it out on our own.

If murder is wrong only because god says so, because as you say he is the "moral arbiter" then we are adrift because we give up our logic, reason, independence, and our responsibility to decide things for ourselves. How adrift? We celebrate the murder of almost the entire human race by drowning as a "good story" Or the murder of the first born children of egypt, or a dad tying his son down and almost stabbing him. We accept human sacrifice. All of this is not only accepted, but it is celebrated.

What god asked abraham to do was evil. What terror his son must have felt. The only way to not see it as evil is to believe that if god said it, it must be right. And you cant say, "well, god stopped him." The kid must have been scared. And had god let him actually kill him, under your view you would have to still accept it as moral.

As an atheist, I can say with absolute certainty that "stabbing your son to death is wrong." A Christian would have to defer to god.

So your answer to my question is that, no, in the atheist view of the world there is no ultimate morality or justice but you hope that people provide it. Your position is that humans must enact justice on other humans and if they fail to it is a failure of justice but justice still exists in the universe (actually, I would say it is very limited on earth among humans).

 

My response to you will be in two separate posts.

 

First, justice, in your view, is meted out by humans or not at all and in some cases, I suppose, they get it wrong and actually perpetrate more injustice. Who determines what is just? I guess it is the community that does this and sometimes individuals who take justice into their own hands and respond to the given situation.

This does not produce justice.

 

If a woman is in Irian Jaya among the people high in the mountain forests and there is misfortune in the village, let’s say someone gets ill or falls and is severely injured, it may be assumed by the village that the spirits are angry at a person. A woman may be arbitrarily picked out (arbitrary to us but not to them) and blamed for the misfortune. She must run for her life into the forest as the village men make every effort to kill her and drive her off.

 

My friend from Communist China was the top student in his engineering class at his university. However, he was not a member of the communist party and another student was given all the honors and accolades that were due him. This was what a communist society calls justice.

 

If my original scenario had included that the brutalized woman was a Jewish woman in Nazi Germany and if we had contemplated that the Nazis were the first to produce nuclear weapons and actually won WWII, and successfully accomplished their goal, her society would have approved of her treatment. The Nazis’ view was that Jewish people were inferior and deserved the treatment they received and actually brought it on themselves. She did receive justice according to that society but none of us from our 21st century perspective would recognize it as such.

 

And if we look at our own society, we make a good faith effort at treating people justly through our court system (since it is based on Biblical ideals to a large degree, I might add). But even in our effort to enact justice, how many times have we seen where DNA evidence, unavailable at the time of a trial, now exonerates a person of a crime and he is set free after being imprisoned for years for a crime he did not commit? Try as we might, we sometimes get it wrong.

 

Humans sometimes disagree widely on what justice is or looks like. Plus, humans may prove to be quite evil and justify their actions when they are quite unjust. In addition, human judgment is fallible and therefore we may be quite wrong in what we consider to be a just action at any given moment.

 

So there is no ultimate justice in the universe according to the atheist view.

 

Here are a couple of quotes by atheists who agree with what I am saying. The first from the well-known Richard Dawkins:

 

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication some people are going to get hurt other people are going to get lucky and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it nor any justice. The universe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless existence. DNA neither knows nor cares DNA just is and we dance to its music.

 

The second quote is from atheist philosopher Kai Nielson:

 

We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view or that really rational beings unhoodwinked by myth or ideology need not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason does not decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me. Pure practical reason even with a good knowledge of the facts will not take you to morality.

 

I could go on but this is sufficient to show that atheism cannot sustain ultimate morality and justice in its worldview. For the atheist, there is no ultimate morality or justice in the universe.

Yes. I agree there is no "ultimate justice". I have posted previously that it all consists of choices we all make, for which we must take responsibility. Both justice and morality do exist, even if they do not reach what you call "ultimate morality or justice."

You don't get there with a god either. To think so is a bit of self-deception and some wishful thinking.

Good game to get it going. Hopefully put some nervousness behind us, and did enough good stuff that the kids should all feel good about themselves going into the next game. .......Skal. Really glad for him.

It's bad.

Apparently it's "federal-law-won't-let-us-discuss-it-bad"