Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 24 Oct 2003 22:17:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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641 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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I would go further and say that there is no transcendent “good” or
“evil.” That’s not to say that these concepts are wholly arbitrary, but I
argue that they are artifacts of our evolution as social organisms.
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I think that that is exactly the case-- that they are wholly arbitrary.
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Pardon? “Wholly arbitrary” would be a determination of “good” and “evil”
based on nothing more than whim or random chance.
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I meant it in the sense that it isn’t based on an absolute, so in theory it
could be based on anything at any given time.
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You can’t define God by the actions of His followers. God’s followers are
imperfect creatures.
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But you have also repeatedly rejected biblical citations of God’s behavior.
How can you attribute any validity to some of the bible’s text while
simultaneously rejecting other sections as you choose? That, I submit, is
far more arbitrary a system of morality than the evolutionary model I’ve
proposed.
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Our evolving understanding of God came as He revealed Himself to us, culminating
in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
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God is obviously a concept that defies understanding. If you
wish to refer to God as an entity of Ultimate Goodness, fine. I think the
key is to acknowledge a separate, Holy entity that is distant and apart
from ourselves.
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Why must it be separate from ourselves?
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Because we are limited and finite.
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Your conception of God isn’t
separate from yourself, yet you seem to accept it as valid.
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Don’t follow you here. God is a separate, distinct entity from me.
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Bad example: Soviet Communism was run as a state religion.
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I disagree. What is a “state religion”? Rather, it was a state that took
the place of the function of religion-- not by design, but in effect.
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“Hamlet was not written by Shakespeare; it was merely written by a man named
Shakespeare...”
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Religion pertains to God. Since Soviet Communism was by design a godless
society, I don’t understand the term “state religion”.
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But I firmly believe that we all have a “God-shaped void” in our hearts that
only God can fill.
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With respect, that’s no different from an atheist claiming “we all have a
deep-seated psychological impulse to envision a patriarchal alpha male, but
some of us are able to recognize this as a failure of reason, and those who
recognize it as such no longer cling to it.” That’s not my view, exactly,
but do you see how your statement is not functionally different from an
atheist’s hypothetical dismissal of religion? You can’t simply make useful
spiritual assumptions about another person’s heart or soul and declare them
to be automatically valid.
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You mean “in”valid? I don’t mind an atheist taking that view, and I completely
understand the “reasoning” behind the rejection of the belief in God. I just
think it is incorrect in the ultimate scheme.
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ETERNAL Damnation if you guess wrong.
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Your words, not mine:-) I don’t believe that at all. I do believe that if
you choose not to be with God, you will experience eternal hell.
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A moral God would allow his beloved, but fallen, children to cease to exist
rather than suffer eternal hell.
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Maybe He does. My point is that the suffering is self-induced-- the
separation is by choice of the person, not God.
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I do good as a response to the love shown me by God. Atheists do good
because....? I’m not sure of the answer to that question, but I’d bet that
if unpacked enough, the answer would be selfish gain somehow.
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But let’s unpack your response, then. You claim that you “do good as a
response to the love shown (you) by God,” but what if you’re wrong? Let’s
suppose, for a moment, that God could be proven not to exist.
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I don’t know how you could prove that, but I’ll say this. Without the hope and
strength given to me by God every day, I could not live. Further, I wouldn’t
care if I lived or not. What would be the point? If there is nothing in the
afterlife, we are merely biding our time until any and every trace of our
consciousness is removed from existence. I probably wouldn’t kill myself,
though that is a genuine question to ask (Camus said that the most important
question anyone can ask themselves is whether or not they should commit
suicide). But then again, in a fit of utter and hopeless despair, maybe I
would. Or maybe I’d be too much of a coward. Who knows. More importantly, who
would really care?
For me, life without God is meaningless. Whether I did good or not would be
entirely moot and without consequence.
JOHN
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