TruthfulChristian vs. Aught3 debate

[Aught3]

Created for the debate between TruthfulChristian and Aught3. No other users will be capable of replying to this thread.

First of all I'd like to thank TruthfulChristian for agreeing to this debate in a forum that might be considered some-what of a lions den. I hope everyone reading this debate finds it entertaining and interesting and I'd also ask you to remember that TruthfulChristian is a member of this site and the rules apply fully to any new threads you may create discussing the content of this debate.

A thread analysing this debate has been created here.

Moderation is being performed by Gnug215 any complaints or issues should be directed to him.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

Hello.

This is a debate between myself and Aught3.

The debate topic is "God and Morality"

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I'd first like to say that I am a strong believer in Objective Morality. I think that Objective Morality is one of the few things that clouds Evolution Theory, this is why there are some scientists today who are beginning to reconsider Evolution Theory. Some Evolutionists will make it clear that our morals evolved historically with our ancestors, some will say that our morals are needed for survival and it is a basic human instinct.

But at what point can be decide what is right and what is wrong? Well, objective morality is always constant and it does not change. Let's scroll back a few hundred years for a second and ask ourselves this question: When have our morals ever changed? Did we think that stealing in the past was acceptable? Did we think that murdering was acceptable? Did we think that rape was acceptable? We never thought that these things were acceptable in the past, and we never will. Sure, there are large groups of people who do these bad things - but do they think in their hearts that it's the right thing to do?

If you see a baby in a trolley that is about to go downhill and crash on the ground, what would you do? Well you would feel an objective force telling you to try and save that baby. It's a bit like an internal, objective sense of what to do. No-one in the right mind would say that it would be okay to let that baby fall and possibly injure or kill it. If someone did really think that then that's not proof of subjective morality, it's proof that that person needs serious medical attention.

So did our morals come about by an Evolutionary process? Or did our morals come from an external force - and how can we confirm either of these answers? Abiogenesis itself is riddled with questions more than it is with answers, "Strange chemical reactions" that took place "billions of years ago" as some scientists claim is a very vague answer compared to some of the alternative answers that we have today. No scientist has ever recreated the conditions at the moment abiogenesis took place, no scientist has ever tested, measured or observed it either. These random chemicals could not have produced a perfect brain that knows the different between right and wrong.

 

[Aught3]

As TruthfulChristian has said the topic of this debate is God and morality. Given that I'll start by outlining one argument for the non-existence of God and then make some comments on the nature of morality as I see it.


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God
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There are a number of definitions for god and my opponent hasn't supplied one in his opening argument so I'd like to ask him: What is your understanding of God, and why do you believe in him? I'll presume that he believes in a generic version of the Christian god, namely God. My atheism with respect to this god is both disbelief and denial of existence, I'll give the problem of evil in support of this proposition. God is generally understood by Christians to be omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient. He has the power to create the universe and affect its functionality on a whim, he wants us to enter eternal paradise, and he is aware of everything at all times.

The inconsistency of these there traits occurs when we think about the amount of suffering (i.e., evil) that exists. There is a large amount of gratuitous suffering in the world which is unnecessary by anyone's standards and we can think of many examples. A young child dying painfully from leukaemia - the doctors being unable to cure the disease. Survivors after the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti being crushed and trapped under the rubble facing an agonising wait until help arrives, if it comes at all. Or a single Springbok slowly dying of dehydration during a drought. These examples show that God either doesn't know about the suffering (not omniscient), does not care (not omnibenevolent), or is unable to stop it (not omnipotent). Therefore, God, as understood by Christians, cannot, and does not, exist.


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Morality
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My opponent has put forward a good case for the existence of objective morality and I agree with most of it! I believe that objective morality exists, though we will disagree upon the source. Our moral values don't come from us but from our need to survive. Humans are, by nature, a co-operative species and to form successful societies we must have built-in rules to help us get along. It's not that you shouldn't steal because someone says that it's bad. You shouldn't steal because it deprives the group of something they need to survive. People who didn't steal were good group co-operators and this behaviour was rewarded and re-enforced by natural selection, eventually resulting in what we call the conscience. From this we can say that what is moral promotes group cohesiveness and happiness, whereas immoral things are destructive towards social communities. Abiogenisis is not necessary for my argument. My thesis is that morality evolves, for that I need evolution and life but not necessarily abiogenesis.

My opponent didn't explain where he thought objective morality came from. If he wishes to cite God as the source he must first provide an argument for the existence of God (challenged by my PoE above). Additionally, why do you think morality granted by God is correct? Is it because whatever God says is automatically good, or because it is already good and God is simply passing along that truth? It's the chicken or egg problem rephrased for theists

 

[TruthfulChristian]

As TruthfulChristian has said the topic of this debate is God and morality. Given that I'll start by outlining one argument for the non-existence of God and then make some comments on the nature of morality as I see it.


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God
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There are a number of definitions for god and my opponent hasn't supplied one in his opening argument so I'd like to ask him: What is your understanding of God, and why do you believe in him? I'll presume that he believes in a generic version of the Christian god, namely God. My atheism with respect to this god is both disbelief and denial of existence, I'll give the problem of evil in support of this proposition. God is generally understood by Christians to be omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient. He has the power to create the universe and affect its functionality on a whim, he wants us to enter eternal paradise, and he is aware of everything at all times.

The inconsistency of these there traits occurs when we think about the amount of suffering (i.e., evil) that exists. There is a large amount of gratuitous suffering in the world which is unnecessary by anyone's standards and we can think of many examples. A young child dying painfully from leukaemia - the doctors being unable to cure the disease. Survivors after the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti being crushed and trapped under the rubble facing an agonising wait until help arrives, if it comes at all. Or a single Springbok slowly dying of dehydration during a drought. These examples show that God either doesn't know about the suffering (not omniscient), does not care (not omnibenevolent), or is unable to stop it (not omnipotent). Therefore, God, as understood by Christians, cannot, and does not, exist.

My understanding of God? Well I believe in the God of the holy scripture (the bible). I can't say that I fully understand God, but according to the scripture, he is a sinless, perfect being. I believe in God because of the evidence that has been presented to me in numberous years of study and research (mainly through books and videos). Your definition of atheism is rather absurd - atheism is not the denial of God, it is the lack of a belief in God(s). If you truly deny God then you are not an atheist, you are an anti-theist.

God gave us humans free will, and the power to choose what to do at any time. We can't account God for our own sins. According to the scripture, we all deserve to die, and we're all no-good sinners. Evil exists because man has chosen to do bad things. This is just my opinion, and I don't mean to create any havoc or trouble, and I realise that some Christians may disagree with me. But I think when a young child dies painfully, whether or not he believes in God, he'll go to Heaven. This is just my belief, and yes, there will be atheists and Christians who will be against this. If you are against it, please send me a Private Message and explain why - perhaps you'll convince me.

Why do you say that God is unable to stop it? Collosians 2:8 and Matthew 7:15 warns us about false prophets who will try to deceive us. I suggest you read a little bit more to understand what the scripture says.

I do have a few questions for you regarding Evolution.

Scientists say that our early ape-like ancestors lived in Africa, where the temperature was blazing hot. Now to my knowledge, they supposedly had a thick layer of fur. This would make it incredibly hard for survival, and in addition to that, there are dangerous predators in Africa such as the cheetah and the tiger.

A successful population requires several basic things -

A reasonable source of food for energy
To execute the energy to gather or hunt more food
A habitat that is safe and will ensure the chances of survival
To be able to reproduce successfully
To be able survive the conditions eg. Weather, predators, diseases, etc.

So my question is, how could our ancestors survive in these conditions? What was their source of energy? What food did they eat?

Well they couldn't have eaten any foods. Even if they hunted in tribes, the endurance, speed and strength of some of the predators would have ripped our ancestors to bits, even our acenstors had primitive weapons such as spears or axes, they still would not have survived.

Without food, how can they execute the energy required to gather more food? Let alone survive? All life needs a source of energy, preferably food. Unless our ancestors could survive without food - but that's impossible.

How could they have lived in a habitat that is safe and would ensure the chances of survival? How could they even build a safe community or tribe with deadly predators lurking around? These people would be frightened and would be trembling every second of the day.

And how could they have survived the harsh conditions? Evolution claims that we are adapting to our environment. Well how is growing fur an adaptation to a HOT environment? It's not an adaptation. And this contradicts Evolution, they are claiming that Evolution has a mind of its own and it can adapt to things, but then they are claiming that these processes are random? So which one is it? And how is it an adaptation? Tell me how this is an adaptation? FUR IN A HOT ENVIRONMENT? I THINK NOT.

And these people simply couldn't have reproduced and have successful generations because they children would die immediately due to lack of food. Keep in mind that these people were quite primitive like evolutionary scientists claim, so they couldn't have survived for very long?



YES I REALISE THAT THERE ARE MODERN DAY HUMANS LIVING IN AFRICA RIGHT NOW. YES I REALISE THAT AND THAT IS A FACT. But the temperatures have decreased over the past few hundred years in Africa, so that's the reason they are surviving, but they are barely passing the survival line, because they have poor nutrition and the climate is still very hot. Plus the help of TECHNOLOGY and TOOLS. But our ANCESTORS COULD NOT HAVE SURVIVED.

So this demands for a creator, which I believe, is the God of the Bible.

 

[Aught3]

I want to thank my opponent for his prompt reply, I hope to repay in kind but this will be my last post until tomorrow.

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God
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My opponent has provided a definition of God but no reason for accepting God's existence. He says he has evidence and reason but hasn't laid them out for us to examine. May I suggest he read Peter 3:15 and tell us why he has accepted Christ.


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PoE
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TruthfulChristian answers the problem of evil by claiming that God had to give us freewill. I do not accept the notion of freewill and TC has given no justification or evidence for its existence. Even if I were to accept that freewill exists TC doesn't explain why freewill was necessary. The only result of freewill appears to be an increase in the amount of evil. So why would God give us freewill knowing that it would increase the amount of evil we were exposed to? Furthermore freewill doesn't explain the gratuitous suffering that results from natural disasters. Earthquakes (to pick just one example) are emphatically not the result of humans asserting their freewill, yet still cause untold suffering. However, if God does not exist it is easy to explain this suffering as the result of natural processes in an uncaring universe.


"Why do you say that God is unable to stop it? Collosians 2:8 and Matthew 7:15"
In fact I say that by our mutual definition of God he should be able and willing to prevent gratuitous suffering but that he does not. This makes his existence inconsistent with the reality we face and is disproof by contradiction. Incidentally, you don't have to worry that I'm seeking to convert you to another faith, nor do I make prophesies. By citing Collosians 2:8 you appear to be admitting that no philosophy can convince you over your faith. Is there truly no amount of wisdom that could reason you away from Christ?


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Morality
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My opponent has yet to provide a source for objective morality, nor has he provided an argument for God's existence, nor has he attempted to rebut the chicken and egg problem of God and morality. Which does he think came first, God's command or morality itself?


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Evolution
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Evolution has been sufficiently established by DNA evidence to the satisfaction of all credible biologists. The relatedness of every organism is demonstrated through the patterns of gene sequence. Closely related organisms have similar gene sequence and distantly related organisms may only have a few letters in common. By sequencing a gene we can build a hierarchy of species grouping them together with their cousins on a tree of life. We can do this over and over with different genes and they all produce the same hierarchy. The concordance is truly remarkable.

As to the questions you raise I think a perfectly adequate reply to all of them is 'I don't know'. Saying 'I don't know' doesn't mean evolution didn't happen just that *I* don't know how it happened. However, there are some explanations I can give to a few questions. For example, it appears that proto-societies survived by males hunting for high-value meat and females constantly gathering low-value vegetables. Put together they form a highly nutritious diet capable of supporting reasonably sized communities. As my opponent points out many human tribes still exist as hunter-gatherers and they are perfectly able to eke out an existence. Finally, we are already more hairless than the other African Apes, evolution has done a fine job equipping us for life on the hot savanna.

To be honest I feel this side-track into the specifics of evolution is mostly irrelevant to our debate, so if you want to continue this line of questioning I'd appreciate an explanation on why you think it is important. I look forward to your next reply.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

2Pe 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

My opponent asked me why I have accepted Christ as my saviour. Well, for many reasons. He went through an unimaginable amount of pain when he was crucified. His wrists were nailed down and he was bleeding everywhere - this is just my opinion, and some of you atheists may disagree, but I think that Jesus loved us all. He loved every single one of us, even the wicked people. I think that's why he died for our sins, so that we can repent and ask for forgiveness. So we can accept that we're no-good sinners and we deserve to die. Salvation without Education is Damnation.

My opponent, Aught3 thinks that Free Will can cause evil, and he asked for evidence or justification for my claim that free will exists.

Free will, in my opinion, is a gift that the Lord has given us. Free will gives us the ability to do whatever we want, whenever we want, whereever we want. Yes, I agree with you that some people choose to walk down the bad road and start doing bad things and that IS because of free will. But trust me, there are more good people in the world than there are bad people. But these bad actions can't be justified by saying that you are "destined" to do this or you have your "own set of morals". Murder, lust, rape, abortion, stealing, etc can NEVER be justified. No-one in the right mind can do such a thing and say that it's okay.

I'd take it that my opponent believes in determinism, which is the opposite of free will. Determinism is the notion that everything is determined from the beginning of the universe. The reason why I extremely disagree with determinism is because that it is absurd and laughable at the least. If everything is determined than you cannot think critically and make choices, nor do you feel impulses to do something. For example, Someone asks you to choose between heads or tails - it is far to complex to say that it is determined, we feel our sense of free will rush through our brain. We can choose either heads or tails, so it's our choice.

Let's say that you roll a six-sided balanced dice numbered 1-6. The chances of rolling a 1 is 1/6, thus proving that there's no such thing as determinism and that humans cannot "determine" which number it will be with perfect accuracy over several hundred dice throws.

I think that God can do anything he wants. And this is just my belief. Alot of extremist liberal-sided trolls like "JustBusiness17" and "UltimateBlasphemer" will probably be the first ones who call me a troll and then start making threads spamming the Forums, but this is just my belief and I don't want to create controversy and havoc on the Forums. I believe that God created the Heaven and the Earth as it describes in the Bible. And if he has the ability to create the Universe, then he has the ability to do whatever he wants.

I also uphold the belief that God thinks differently and his "ways" are differ from our "ways".

Isa 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

No-one in this modern-day period can understand with 100% accuracy of EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE. I don't claim to understand God 100%, I don't claim that I know what he's thinking. So saying that you understand how everything works is very contradictary.

My opponent seems to have avoided my previous questions, he's only addressed a few of them in his previous post. Yes, there are tribes today that are living well, but I was simply referring to our past, because scientists claim that our ancestors were very primitive and they did not have large brains compared to us. Now how could these primitive ape-like mammals lived in this period of time under the conditions, environment, climate, etc in which I described in my previous post where I listed some of the things required for a successful generation to "move on"?

I would agree with you when you say that there are groups today who are healthy compared to the average American, but I'd have to disagree when you say that males hunt meat and females hunt vegetables. I kindly ask you to cite your source on this claim.

I urge my opponent to read John Chapter 3 for a while before making his next rebuttal. He may have questions regarding God.

Joh 3:1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
Joh 3:2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Joh 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Joh 3:4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Joh 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
Joh 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Joh 3:9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
Joh 3:10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Joh 3:11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
Joh 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
Joh 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
Joh 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
Joh 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Joh 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Joh 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Joh 3:20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
Joh 3:21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Joh 3:22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.
Joh 3:23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.
Joh 3:24 For John was not yet cast into prison.
Joh 3:25 Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying.
Joh 3:26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him.
Joh 3:27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.
Joh 3:28 Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
Joh 3:29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
Joh 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
Joh 3:31 He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all.
Joh 3:32 And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony.
Joh 3:33 He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.
Joh 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
Joh 3:35 The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.
Joh 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

 

[Aught3]

First, I do have a passing familiarly with the story presented in the Bible and I presume my opponent accepts large parts of the book. I do not find the contents of the Bible convincing and hence am an atheist. I ask for my opponent to produce the reasons/evidences he has for believing in God. Believing in God because you believe the Bible, and then believing the Bible because you believe in God is circular reasoning. The Bible cannot be inspired by God, if God does not exist.


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Freewill
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In my last response I challenged TruthfulChristian to provide some justification for freewill to validate his response to the problem of evil. He answered that he has a subjective sense of choosing when he makes a decision. However, this is insufficient. Benjamin Libet has shown that the readiness potential precedes the feeling of conscious decision making by 500 ms. This means the signal is already on its way to the muscles before you feel as though you made the decision. Additional research on split brain patients shows they confabulate reasons for their behaviour. Even though the scientists are in control, the subjects still feel as though they have freewill. The subjective sense of our own decisions cannot demonstrate the existence of freewill. If my opponent wishes to use this argument to escape from the problem of evil he must explain how it works. Additionally, he has not provided any justification for the suffering of humans in natural disasters, which are not caused by freewill. Nor has he explained why God allows various animals to suffer agonising deaths with no human involvement. Until he does this the problem of evil still stands and justifies my disbelief in the Christian god.


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Morality
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I'm going to take this opportunity to expand on my view of morality. As I see it, there are three important aspects to a moral judgment: values, action, and consequences. To determine whether morality is subjective or objective we have to decide whether or not each aspect is based on personal opinion or whether there is an objective fact of the matter. Actions are clearly objective and are what someone did. Consequences are also objective, they can (in principle) be measured after the action (e.g., count the number of people harmed vs. helped) and estimated before the action.

Some people might think that values are inherently subjective as they rely on the person holding them. However, it's not a question of what values do you hold but a question of what values should you hold. Some values (such as happiness and life) are intrinsically good for their own sakes. They promote a flourishing of both ourselves and our communities. An absence of these values can be shown to lead to a break-down of society and eventually to a break-down of individuals. Once we accept these intrinsic values we can find others that, in general, help to promote them. Examples are friendship, security, and liberty. Values like these are objectively worthwhile and we can built objective morality from them. Objective morality by this method will still have small encroaches of bias but it comes as close as possible to the standard of objectivity and can't be claimed to be heavily influenced by personal emotion or opinion. The practical result of a process like this would be something like the utilitarian ethic of maximising happiness and minimising suffering.

Importantly, under my view of morality there is no need for a God to provide the objective moral standard. The values, actions, and consequences are objectively striven for because they inherently promote human flourishing.

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Evolution
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I'm still not convinced the specific course of human evolution is relevant. I cited genetics as sufficient to demonstrate that evolution occurred and my opponent hasn't challenged that. Events that occurred in the past may forever be lost, we can only access some of them through the trace they leave behind on today's world. It doesn't matter because evolution unequivocally happened. Why are particulars in the history of humanity's surivial struggle relevant to a debate on God and morality?

 

[TruthfulChristian]

But opponent stated that a signal must first travel through our body and then to our muscles to make a decision. This is a logically weak argument because then we must figure out where the signal originated from. Do signals just pop in our brain randomly? I think I represent most of the reasonable scientists when I say that no-one has uncovered and explored all sections of the brain and that no-one can fully understand how it works. People have free will because they can control the impulses and they can choose what to do. For example, if you can select one out of the two items, that means that free will exists. A great exmaple would be chocolate and orange flavored ice cream - which one would you pick? That's your sense of free will - the sense to do whatever you want to do.

The determinism argument is overly complex and it contradicts many of the basic scientific principals such as "Occam's Razor". Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest answer is usually the correct one. The free will argument is based on many scientific foundational principals whereas determinism is not as it is overly complex as I said before.

And my opponent says that I can't explain how Evil works? I don't understand your question, please rephrase it. Keep in mind that I think there are evil people out there who are willing to prey on mindless drones for financial profit. Yes - I've stated this many times in this debate - THERE IS SUCH THING AS EVIL.

You also say that free will cannot exist because of all the natural disasters that happen in this world. This is another example of another flawed argument. To refute this argument, we must step back and see where and how the natural disaster was caused. Things in the universe abide by the scientific law, such as gravity. Tsunamis are caused mainly because of the law of gravity and the forces that control it. God doesn't allow animals to suffer in pain, HUMANS are the ones who do this, by shredding up cows for meat, by chopping down trees, by killing fish and littering the environment. God gave us free will, and we are obviously abusing it by doing all these bad things. We can't justify killing animals or dropping a nuclear bomb to cause total annihilation - NONE OF THIS CAN BE JUSTIFIED.



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Now onto Morality, I think that humans uphold certain values and morals which are all basically the same when you look at it from an intellectual perspective. Some values are good, some aren't, Happiness is a good thing, but is it good all the time? No. Should you be a happy sinner? I don't think so. Should you be happy that someone innocent died? No! Of course not! My opponent also says that God doesn't need to give us a set of morals because all successful countries create their own morals on the basis of "Minimising suffering and maximising happiness". Well isn't it somewhat coincidental that all people that follow a set of particular morals get on well? All these morals seem to be the SAME. Compare the United Kingdom to Africa, and compare Africa to the United States. All these places have the same set of morals which obviously came from God. And even if you rewind back to history, you'll see people that have EXACTLY the same morals as us, scroll back into the Garden of Eve, STILL, EXACTLY THE SAME MORALS. Subjective morality is always changing, and we obviously have kept the same set of morals in the past few thousand years. Show me any verse or chapter in the bible that says that our morals change. 99% of people want to live happy lives without fighting or having anything bad happen to them. This is just a natural instinct, it's not proof of SUBJECTIVE/CHANGING MORALITY. Why would a loving God create humans that enjoy slaughtering each other and stealing from one another? So we have a natural drive to do the right thing, this doesn't mean that EVERYONE is GOOD. We're all no-good sinners and we HAVE SINNED.


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You dismiss Human Evolution which is what most biologists agree with and you decide to talk about genetics? Thsi is beginning to get out of hand. Stick to EVOLUTION, not the laws of genetics. Saying that "IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE EVOLUTION IS TRUE AND IT JUST HAPPENED" is not being skeptical, it's avoiding the questions that YOU YOURSELF have layed out. One of the most foundational falsehoods of evolutionism is that you pose a question and you ignore it, then when you're presented with enough evidence and convincing arguments, you ignore it. So please, I urge you to include "Evolution" in this debate as it is relevant to the things that we're talking about. You still haven't answered some of my questions which I presented in my first post, and then when you answered it, I refuted it and now you're simply trying to avoid it.





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Please read Genesis if you have any questions about the universe or how it began. I know you won't accept evidence that is written in the bible, but this may be useful if you have questions. I have some great arguments for the creation of the universe and noah's ark. here's a reference to Genesis 1.


The First Book of Moses, Called
Genesis
1

The Creation
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 ,¶ And God said, Let there be light: 2 Cor. 4.6 and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 ,¶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. 2 Pet. 3.5 And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 ,¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 ,¶ And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 ,¶ And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 ,¶ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 ,¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, 1 Cor. 11.7 after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Mt. 19.4 ,· Mk. 10.6

28 And God blessed them, Gen. 5.1, 2 and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

 

[Aught3]

Once again I must remind my opponent that I am familiar with the stories in the Bible and do not accept them. I did not agree to participate in this thread to be preached at, but rather to have a debate on the arguments and evidence for God and morality.


~~~~~~~~~~
PoE
~~~~~~~~~~
The problem of evil at its most simplest says that the existence of evil (something morally wrong that causes harm, pain, or misery) is incompatible with the existence of an all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful god. Since we know that evil exists (e.g., gratuitous suffering) God cannot. I do not believe my opponent has sufficiently demonstrated the existence of contra-causal freewill but even if he had there is still the problem of natural causes of suffering where humans are not the cause and freewill is not involved.

My opponent says that natural diasters 'just happen' on Earth and we can't blame God. However, at the end of his last post he cites Genesis which details how God created Earth. Presumably this God also created the fault-lines (earthquakes), magma (volcanoes), and the whether system (hurricanes). If God were all-powerful he should have been able to create a different planet where these tragedies did not occur. Or, at least, seeing the awful situation he should be able to step in and fix the problems he overlooked in those first seven days. The fact that he does not do so is a moral crime of omission and causes untold suffering, evil by my definition. But God cannot be evil, ergo God does not exist.


~~~~~~~~~~
Morality
~~~~~~~~~~
The fact that we all have a similar moral structure is no surprise because all humans are very similar and share many innate traits. Examples include a conscience, empathy, and a sophisticated moral calculus that allows us to spot when we are being cheated. On the issue of happiness, the point is not to be happy that someone is being murdered but rather to prevent the murder so that all involved increase their overall happiness and minimise their suffering.

My opponent has finally stated what he considers to be the source of objective morality, God. However he has not answered the dilemma I posed earlier in anticipation of this answer. Why are the rules God provides moral? They can either be moral because God said them, in which case anything God ordered would immediately be morally acceptable (including slavery). Or God is simply recognising the innate morality of these ideas and passing them on to us. In this case we should be able to bypass God and get to the true nature of morality by ourselves. If God ordered you to do something morally repugnant, say murdering your daughter, would you do it?

"Show me any verse"¦in the Bible that says that our moral change."
I can't do that explicitly but one example to show that the Biblical understanding of morality lags behind the moral zeitgeist is that of slavery. The Bible emphatically supports slavery. It tells you who you can own as a slave, how much it costs to sell them, and how to mark them as your property. It also tells you how much you can beat them including to death (Exodus 21:20-21). Owning another human being is objectively immoral as it increases the suffering of that individual. God's rules allow you to deprive your slave of liberty, happiness, and in certain circumstances life itself. How can you possibly consider slavery, and by extension God, moral?


~~~~~~~~~~
Evolution
~~~~~~~~~~
Evolution supports my viewpoint about what is good for humans because of our innate morality and a desire to co-operate with others. I don't require evolution to be true for my arguments to hold up and if I was relying on evolution to make a point about morality I would be committing the naturalistic fallacy. The reason I don't want to talk to you about evolution is that I feel my understanding of the subject is more advanced than yours. The fact that you don't understand why genetics shows evolution is true beyond a reasonable doubt supports this viewpoint. I'm happy to let the audience make the decision in this case. If they believe that evolution occurred it supports my argument, if they don't it means my argument has less support but is still valid and needs to be refuted by other means.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

I presume that my opponent is saying that a God can't exist

because of all the evil that is happening. Let me say that the

first sin every commited was by humans, not god - we are the

ones who brang evil into the world, not God. This takes us

back to Genesis Chapter 3.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of

the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the

woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of

the garden?
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of

the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the

garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye

touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not

surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,

then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,

knowing good and evil.
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for

food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be

desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and

did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did

eat.
Gen 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they

knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves

together, and made themselves aprons.
Gen 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in

the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid

themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the

trees of the garden.
Gen 3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto

him, Where art thou?
Gen 3:10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I

was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Gen 3:11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?

Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that

thou shouldest not eat?
Gen 3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to

be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
Gen 3:13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is

this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent

beguiled me, and I did eat.
Gen 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because

thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and

above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go,

and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,

and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,

and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy

sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth

children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall

rule over thee.
Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast

hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the

tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat

of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou

eat of it all the days of thy life;
Gen 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;

and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till

thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for

dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Gen 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she

was the mother of all living.
Gen 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God

make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become

as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put

forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and

live for ever:
Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the

garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east

of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which

turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Eve had a choice to not eat the fruit, but she ate it anyway

because Satan told her to. Matthew 7:15 and Collosians 2:8,

as I said earlier, warns us about people who are willing to

deceive others. So as we can see from Genesis 3, the first sin

was cast by humans. God obviously didn't want them to suffer

because God never commanded Adam and Eve to eat the fruit

of the tree. So who's fault is it? It's our fault. We are no-good

sinners. All humans are sinners and that's a fact, we can't just

suddenly push the blame on God. America, like many other

countries, have become very laid back and lazy, we've turned

out backs on God and we are relying on Technology to do

things for us. Technology is good, such as medicine, cars,

computers, etc, but it's like a double-edged sword.

Technology is only good if we moderate outselves, if we

become addicted and lazy, we often turn out backs against

God and reject him. So if we're all no-good sinners, what

should we do? The Bible says that God is perfect and holy.

Here are some verses in the Bible which mention God as being

perfect and being able to do anything. So put simply, there is

evil in the world because of our sins.

2Sa 22:31 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the

LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
Deu 32:3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD:

ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
Mar 10:27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is

impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are

possible.
Mat 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy

laden, and I will give you rest.

Jesus Christ was crucified and offered a way out, we must

repent. Here are some more examples of bible verses that talk

about repenting and forgiving others. We need to admit that

we're no-good sinners.

Mat 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Mat 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say,

Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.



So why didn't God create perfect human beings? Why do we

have natural disasters? Why do some humans get injured? Why

do innocent people die?

Well, this is a very vague question. Well as I said earlier, I

don't know why there are natural disasters in this world, I

don't know why God doesn't heal SOME people, I don't know

why innocent people die. Some of these are a result of human

actions, but some are completely random and are unknowable

to humans. But I don't claim to understand God fully and I

don't think that any human on earth at this moment in time

can understand God perfectly.

Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are

your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

His thoughts are not our thoughts, our ways are not his ways.

Perhaps Isaiah 55:8 could suggest that his brain works

differently than ours and his mental processes are different.

This may explain why there are natural disasters.

What my opponent is esentially doing is he's setting up a false

dichotomy. My opponents argument revolves around this:

1.God is real and he likes to see humans suffer and burn
2.God is not real because there is evil in the world which is

caused by man and natural disasters

What he's doing is he's not considering other possibilities and

he's cutting out all the other possible explanations. False

Dichotomy arguments revolve around limiting from the

choices which I can choose from and forcing the opponent to

select one of the choices which are either 1. Inaccurate and/or

poorly worded. 2. Illogical and lacking in logic. In this case,

number 1 is lacking in logic and is poorly worded, and if I

accept number 2 then he has won the debate. So the only

option left is number 1. Well I choose neither of these

options. I don't engage in answering false dichotomy

arguments, I think that no human on earth can fully know

and/or understand God at this moment in time, and I don't

think that God enjoys seeing people die and perish in

damnation. Show me any verse in the bible where it mentions

about God enjoying humans burning in hell - YOU CAN'T,

there's not enough evidence for option 1.










-







My oppoent also argues and says that we are very similar and

share the same traits, which is why our morals are the same.

However, I do not think that this is enough to say that

morality is subjective. Once again, my opponent walks

straight into the blind door of ignorance and he poses a very

absurd question. My opponent said: "If God ordered you to do

something morally repugnant, say murdering your daughter,

would you do it?"

I don't have a daughter, but even if I had a daughter, I would

not do it. Why? Because this is an impossible situation, my

opponent is using another logical fallacy. God will never tell

me to murder my own daughter, even if I had one. Why

wouldn't I do it? Because there are laws preventing one to kill

one another and there are consequences for dangerous

actions such as killing. But nonetheless, I trust the

righteousness of Christ because he was brave and he

sacrificed himself for us, and that shows us that he loved us

alot.

My opponent still hasn't addressed some of my previous few

posts, instead, he diverges into a different section of morality

and tries to drift this debate off-track. Dr. Ravi Zacharias

presents a very solid argument when he says that Good

cannot exist without Evil, I agree with this, I created an

analogy that says Blue cannot exist without Red. And this is

true, because our eyes work by trying to sense the opposite

colour, and if that opposite colour isn't there, then we cannot

see the main colour which we are starring at. So without Good,

there cannot be evil, but then we need a baseline from which

we can split good and evil into different areas so that we

know what is good and we know what is evil - and all of the

historical events agree with this argument that Dr. Ravi

makes, our morals are never changing and we haven't changed

not even a SINGLE moral in the past. But my opponent also

argues against a moral-giver, which is God. He argues that

our morals evolved with society, this is another logically-

lacking argument, because how can we define when a group is

a society? It all comes down to a word-play. If morals evolved

with society, then we would have slowly died off, if different

people just decided on a set of morals then there would

obviously people who disagree with those morals, and then

there would be war and fighting, everyone would have died

off. So there has to be an objective set of morals that we can

all abide and agree with. If morals are always changing then

we would have war on our 24/7.







-






My opponent also says that he has a desire to co-operate with others, which is why evolution is true. Well, not all humans have your skill. Why do we have keys? Why do we have keyholes? Why do we have banks? Why do we have houses? Why do we have clothes? Because we simply can't trust humans breaking into our homes, stealing our money, perving at us. This simply proves that not all humans are willing to co-operate. Evolution isn't true just because some humans are willing to co-operate. Did these co-operative skills somehow evolved along with Natural Selection and Random Mutations? Of course not. God gave us the intellect to choose what we want to do. We all have choices to do whatever we want. I used to work in a social community center and I used to teach people that they all had choices to choose what to do. Saying that it's "determined" is not a good enough excuse. If a murderer justifies his murders by saying that it's "determined" then he is a liar and he is coming up with a poor excuse. Instead, you can try to calm him down and tell him that he has the WILL and the POWER that GOD gave HIM to choose his OWN PATH.

 

[Aught3]

I see my opponent has continued to preach the Bible rather than provide a substantial argument. I think this is because he understands that the problem of evil is indeed a serious problem. He seems to think that God must have a good reason to allow all the gratuitous non-human suffering but does not know what that reason is. I think he recognises that God must be able to arrange things on Earth to minimise suffering but that he chooses not to, God is serving some other purpose. This is precisely my point. Incidentally, it is not a dichotomy, there are other options. The god could be evil, for example, or the god could exist yet be uncaring. However, these gods do not meet the criteria for the Christian god, which is the one I am arguing does not exist. I would also like to point out that my opponent has yet to offer an argument for God's existence that does not rely on Biblical accuracy.


~~~~~~~~~~
Jepthah
~~~~~~~~~~
I asked TruthfulChristian a straight question in my last post: If God ordered you to do something morally repugnant, say murdering your daughter, would you do it? Using the example of murdering your daughter may seem like absurd phraseology but those of us more familiar with the Bible will immediately recognise the allusion to the story of Jephthah. Briefly, Jephthah is an Israelite general who on the eve of a battle is overcome by the spirit of the lord; he and Jepthah make a deal to exchange victory for a sacrifice. God carries out his end of the bargain by delivering Jepthah's enemies into his hands but upon returning home Jepthah finds he has to sacrifice his daughter in order to keep his vow. Unlike the story of Abraham and Isaac, God does not intervene and Jepthah "did with her according to his vow which he had vowed" offering her as a burnt sacrifice to his lord (Judges 11:29-39).

In answering my question TruthfulChristian said that God would never tell someone to murder their own daughter, but the story of Jepthah shows this to be false. God entered into the deal knowing in advance (omniscience) that Jepthah would end up having to sacrifice his daughter. He essentially asked for the murder of Jepthah's daughter as payment for services rendered. Additionally, my opponent recognises the immorality of this act saying that he would not go through with it. I'm glad that he, like me, does not derive his morality from the God of the Bible.


~~~~~~~~~~
PoE
~~~~~~~~~~
My opponent then tries to justify the existence of evil by saying that without evil we could not have good. While I think he is mistaking the concept of good with the reality of good, it's really the excess of unnecessary evil which I was concerned with. Some amount of evil could be necessary but the gratuitous suffering that we see all around us has no good justification. Heaven seems to provide a good example of this. In heaven, people (or souls) presumably have the freewill that my opponent seems to desire, yet they do not experience suffering and instead are faced with constant pleasure. We know God has the power to create such worlds and populate them with human souls, yet in our case he chooses not to. This action is inconsistent with the nature of the Christian god.


~~~~~~~~~~
Slavery
~~~~~~~~~~
I would especially like my opponent to answer the slavery question. Does he believe slavery is morally right, or is this yet another example of the immorality of God's rules?


~~~~~~~~~~
Morality
~~~~~~~~~~
My opponent also asks what I consider to be an excellent question. If our morality is built-in by evolution why do we need locks? The answer to this question gets to the reason why I don't rely on the evolutionary argument for morality. While co-operation can evolve (examples are truly legion, bonobos for one) it is also to our advantage to occasionally cheat the system. This is because if we don't get caught the result is a large pay-off, both for us and our ancestors. However, these aberrant behaviours have the side effect of harming others and damaging the fabric of our society. No rational person could wish for everyone to engage in such behaviours or their communities would break-down. Given this fact, no moral person ought to engage in such behaviour, even if it is to their own benefit. Unfortunately, there are some people who do not engage in moral behaviour so it is prudent for us to defend our happiness and discourage others from interfering with it by putting locks on our doors.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

My opponent seems to be ignoring some parts of my posts. I did provide biblical verses but I also backed them up with my arguments. My opponent is ignoring the arguments which I have set up to debate him and he's just reading the Bible verses which I have posted, I am assuming that he's going to say that I am using "circular reason" and say that I am implying circular reasoning to my arguments. This is not the case as this is not circular reasoning.

My argument revolves around:

A=X THEREFORE Y

An example of a circular reasoning would be:

A=X=Y
Y=A=X
X=Y=A

THEREFORE A = Y = X

I am not arguing in circles, I am using Bible verses to SUPPORT my argument.

I quote from Aught 3: (BELOW)
"I see my opponent has continued to preach the Bible rather than provide a substantial argument. I think this is because he understands that the problem of evil is indeed a serious problem."

_____


You are using a logical bow and arrow argument where you use your own judgement to try and see the grand scheme of things. Yes, I am providing bible verses, but as I said earlier, I am SUPPORTING THEM WITH ARGUMENTS THAT DON'T HAVE BIBLE VERSES IN THEM. Then you go on to accuse me that I think that the problem of evil is a serious problem. When did I ever say in this debate that evil is a serious problem? When did I say that because there is EVIL, there CANNOT be a God? When have I ever said those things? I've NEVER SAID THOSE THINGS. Please provide reasonable and trustworthy sources and links if you try to make a claim like that.


_____


I quote from Aught 3: (BELOW)
" I think he recognises that God must be able to arrange things on Earth to minimise suffering but that he chooses not to, God is serving some other purpose. This is precisely my point. Incidentally, it is not a dichotomy, there are other options. The god could be evil, for example, or the god could exist yet be uncaring. However, these gods do not meet the criteria for the Christian god, which is the one I am arguing does not exist. I would also like to point out that my opponent has yet to offer an argument for God's existence that does not rely on Biblical accuracy."


_____


Your whole accusation has been demolished when you said "I think". Once again, you are trying to use opinions to justify your facts. And yes, it is a false dichotomy argument because you haven't provided other possible options which can be selected from the finite set of options in which you originally layed out. You have to provide all the options, instead, as I said earlier, you provided two options, one of which is logically-lacking. What about the option that God is not 100% knowable and that no human in this point in time will ever fully understand how he operates and thinks? Put that that option and I will kindly accept, instead, you haven't done so and you've only given us a small set of possible options. This is why I think that you are using a false dichotomy. My opponent also demands for an argument for God's existence. Cosmological matter cannot form organic compounds, it simply isn't possible. No scientist has ever recreated the conditions similar to the big bang, no scientist has ever created life that has been directly observed, and the Red Shift Theory has been demolished, what does Red Shift mean? It means nothing. It's not proof of the Big Bang at all.



_____



I quote from Aught 3: (BELOW)
"I asked TruthfulChristian a straight question in my last post: If God ordered you to do something morally repugnant, say murdering your daughter, would you do it? Using the example of murdering your daughter may seem like absurd phraseology but those of us more familiar with the Bible will immediately recognise the allusion to the story of Jephthah. Briefly, Jephthah is an Israelite general who on the eve of a battle is overcome by the spirit of the lord; he and Jepthah make a deal to exchange victory for a sacrifice. God carries out his end of the bargain by delivering Jepthah's enemies into his hands but upon returning home Jepthah finds he has to sacrifice his daughter in order to keep his vow. Unlike the story of Abraham and Isaac, God does not intervene and Jepthah "did with her according to his vow which he had vowed" offering her as a burnt sacrifice to his lord (Judges 11:29-39)."



______



Although your question may be appealing to others, it is definetely not appealing to me and I feel as if we're diverging into a whole new subject of whether asking these questions is appropriate on an online Forum. But anyhow, God would never ask me to murder my own daughter. But what if he did? It depends on the circumstances. I AM NOT PREPARED TO MAKE ANY STATEMENT REGARDING THIS QUESTION. I am asking my opponent to give me the circumstances which I am in. Does God just randomly come up to me and ask me to murder my own daughter? Do I have to murder my own daughter because she is against God? Give me some hypothetical scenarios and describe them with more accuracy please - until then, I cannot make any statement regarding this question. I don't think that the story you posted with Jepthah sacrificing his daughter is relevant to this debate. You gave me a completely different scenario and now you're bringing up a different story and you're trying to compare two different scenarios.

God didn't appear in front of Jepthah and asked him to kill his own daughter. He himself made a vow to God. So please explain how this is relevant to the debate. How is any of this immoral? Jepthah knew that something or someone had to be sacrificed, if anything, this biblical event showed that Jepthah was hungry for victory and he was greedy, he wanted victory so badly that he ignored the reality of having to sacrifice his daughter. My opponent's question was completely misguided, I wouldn't make a deal with God to win a war at the expense of my Daughter's death. Please explain and address ALL of my points this time, Aught3.




_____





I quote from Aught 3: (BELOW)
"My opponent then tries to justify the existence of evil by saying that without evil we could not have good."

As I said earlier, I DON'T KNOW HOW GOD OPERATES AND THINKS. Ignorance does not equate to a positive answer. Saying that just because you don't know how he operates and thinks is not a valid argument for you to use, Aught3.


-


I quote from Aught3: (BELOW)
"While I think he is mistaking the concept of good with the reality of good, it's really the excess of unnecessary evil which I was concerned with. Some amount of evil could be necessary but the gratuitous suffering that we see all around us has no good justification."

And what is this excess unnecessary evil? Please give more insight and description to your replies, because they are too vague. Most of the unnecessary evil, is done by MAN. As I described earlier in Genesis, it was man(by man I mean human) who were the first ones to sin. We were the ones who caused all of this evil, it originated from eating the fruit of the tree. And what about when Jesus Christ was crucified and he went through an unimaginable amount of pain? Was that all "justified" because you believe in subjective/changing morality? He died because he loved us. Is that enough for you? Or does his death mean NOTHING to you at all? And how is evil "incosistent with the nature of the Christian God"? This is probably the billionth time I've said this, but no-one understands the nature of the Christian God. No-one can fully understand the Christian God. You can't - no-one can. Stop making these outragous claims.




______





I quote from Aught3: (BELOW)
"I would especially like my opponent to answer the slavery question. Does he believe slavery is morally right, or is this yet another example of the immorality of God's rules?"

I am not willing to make a statement on slavery. Do I believe it's morally right? I don't know, I don't have an answer for thise. But this doesn't mean that you've "won" the debate or that you've "debunked" me. It just means that you can pose difficult questions that I cannot answer. How is this question relevant?




______




I quote from Aught3: (BELOW)
"While co-operation can evolve (examples are truly legion, bonobos for one) it is also to our advantage to occasionally cheat the system."





Well, according to Evolution Theory, all humans have an instinct to survive. So here you are contradicting yourself when you say that things co-operate. You are wrong, because if they had an instinct to survive, EVERYONE would cheat the system and it would survival of the fittest, whoever that was the best at cheating the system would be the only survivor - but this also demolishes Evolution Theory itself.

Let me give you a HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE.

There are 100 peices of Fruit scattered throughout a forest that is 1KM in length and 1KM in width.
There are 100 humans scattered on this forest.
There are 3 greedy humans and they are best at cheating the system and stealing most of the fruit.
The rest of the humans who do not get fruit do not survive, and therefore die.

And this means that Evolution couldn't have happened because of the lack of food and resources. But let's suppose that you're right for a second and say that we all have co-operative skills. Why isn't this evident in society today? We still have drastic measures for dealing with people who aren't willing to co-operate? We clearly don't have co-operative skills, because why would we need car locks? Bank accounts? security alarms? hound dogs? fences? clothes? it just shows how greedy and un-coperative some humans are. So it's the technology that has allowed us to survive and it's our ever expanding intellect. There where did this intellect come from? It came from God, because he created us in his own image.

 

[Aught3]

~~~~~~~~~~
God
~~~~~~~~~~
When I asked my opponent to provide the reason why he believes in God he cited the story of Jesus Christ as told in the Bible. However, the only reason for taking the Bible more seriously than any other book is that it was supposedly written or inspired by the same God I was asking him to demonstrate. This is a classic case of begging the question.

My opponent has now provided a second argument for the existence of God. He says that it is impossible for cosmological matter to form organic compounds; however he fails to provide any justification for this assertion. It doesn't seem unlikely to me that cosmological matter could form organic compounds. Carbon is produced in stars as lighter elements are fused together. This carbon can join and form all sorts of complex organic molecules with other elements. Two examples that have been detected in space are ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide. Given that the Earth faced heavy bombardment during its formation, these organic molecules could have contributed to the beginning of life on our planet. Additionally, the implications of redshift are well understood. Essentially, by citing these examples my opponent has attempted to make a god of the gaps argument. He has claimed that these things are unknown, thus we need a god to explain them. But this conclusion does not follow. When something is unknown all we can say about it is that it is unknown, my opponent doesn't know how God did it any more than I know how natural processes might have done it. Abiogenesis is not a point for God, it is at best a draw.


~~~~~~~~~~
Biblical Immorality
~~~~~~~~~~
TruthfulChristian asks me to explain why a deal with God involving a sacrifice is immoral. I thought it would have been self-evident that human sacrifice is abhorrent and it seems strange to me that there is a (so-called) moral code that can't understand that point. What Jepthah wanted was victory in battle which is perfectly understandable, what God wanted as payment was a virgin sacrifice which is morally unacceptable. This story does show Jepthah in a bad light but God also agreed to the deal and unlike with Isaac he allowed the sacrifice to go through unchecked. Since God is omniscient it seems probable he was aware Jepthah would end up murdering his daughter from the beginning. Yet God still agreed with the deal. If this story is supposed to teach Jepthah a lesson, why is the ultimate punishment inflicted on an innocent bystander? However, my opponent says that he, unlike God, would not make this kind of deal. Once again I'm glad to see he does not draw his morality from the example of God.

TruthChristian asks why the examples of God's immorality matter to this debate. My opponent has previously claimed that the source of objective morality was God, but when I asked whether something was moral because God said it or because it is inherently moral he refused to answer. If he answers these questions on Biblical events it will help to determine which side of the dilemma he comes down on. Given his answer to the Jepthah situation above he appears to agree with me that just because God does something does not make the action moral. However, slavery is a much clearer example. The fact that my opponent is unwilling or unable to give a straight answer on a question as obvious as the morality of slavery seems to indicate some severe problems with the moral code he espouses. Does he really have no justification for God's rules regarding slaves in ancient Israel?


~~~~~~~~~~
PoE
~~~~~~~~~~
TruthfulChristian asks for some more examples of gratuitous suffering that constitutes unnecessary evil. I gave three examples in my opening post (childhood leukaemia, earthquake victims, and a dying animal) I will cite one further one here. In 2009 a severe drought hit Kenya. This drought was a natural phenomenon not caused by humanity's impact on the area. Apart from the humans and livestock who were hard hit due to this natural disaster, the wild-life of Kenya also suffered greatly. Some of the worse impacted where the large elephants and hippos who were not able to find enough food and slowly starved to death. Some of the animals were saved thanks to an intervention by humans bearing fodder but a number still died. These animals were not overpopulating the park, their species is endangered, and keeping them alive was beneficial to the nearby humans in the form of tourist dollars. The animals' death by starvation was unnecessary suffering on all counts. While humans stepped in and tried to save as many animals as possible, God did nothing. Nothing to alleviate this suffering. He is either uncaring, unknowing, or powerless to prevent unnecessary evil. Possessing any of these traits would make him inconsistent with the notion of the Christian god. Therefore, the Christian god does not exist.


~~~~~~~~~~
Altruism
~~~~~~~~~~
I've gone on a bit long on this post so in regards to your final point I'll just say that reciprocal altruism is highly beneficial in the kind of situation you describe and I'll cite the example of vampire bats to make my case. An interesting little fact is that vampire bats have much more complex brains than other bat species. This is probably due to their need to remember who is and isn't willing to be generous with food. God didn't give us our intelligence, co-operation did.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

Aught3, please demonstrate how I was begging the question.

Again, you are using another logical fallacy. Here is an example of BEGGING THE QUESTION

X exists because of Y
Y says that X exists

Begging the question doesn't mean you're wrong. It menas you've failed to present a logically structured argument.
I'm saying that X=Y

So please explain how I am begging the question and employing circular reasoning.

And then I'm telling you why Y is accurate. Noah's ark has been discovered, some of the fulfilled prophecies in the scripture all have been fulfilled, and there are thousands of eye-witness testimonies. Some people even testify in the COURT OF LAW that they saw Jesus or that they had an out of the norm experience. I remember seeing a documentary by Ian McCormack when my brother returned back from the Library, he wanted me to see the documentary. It was about a New-Zealand man who was bitten by a jellyfish, and he sees these "visions" of Jesus Christ. I think I could say that it did truly capture my soul, the sincerity of this man was astounding, and his visions were very inspiring. Source: http://spiritlessons.com/Documents/ian_mccormack/Ian_McCormack_Glimps_of_Eternity.htm


"I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my prayer for salvation. Not from my head, but from my heart, asking "God forgive me for my wickedness and evil-doing. God cleanse me. I forgive all those that have hurt me. And Jesus Christ, I'll do your will, your will be done. I will follow you." I had prayed the sinners prayer, the repentant prayer to God." - Ian McCormack

He admitted that he was a no-good sinner and he repented. He asked God for forgiveness and he accepted the righteousness of Christ, not himself. Please watch this, it is very inspiring.

http://spiritlessons.com/Documents/ian_mccormack/Ian_McCormack_Glimps_of_Eternity.htm








_____





I quote from Aught3:
"Two examples that have been detected in space are ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide. Given that the Earth faced heavy bombardment during its formation, these organic molecules could have contributed to the beginning of life on our planet. Additionally, the implications of redshift are well understood."

Then could you please tell me why scientists haven't recreated the Big Bang? After numerous decades, why haven't we been able to create the Big Bang and apply the scientific method to it? This area is clearly not fully understood, so no-one can claim that it's a theory based on facts, or that it's a theory with a strong base argument. The scientific method requires: TESTING, OBSERVING and MEASURING - none of which has been applied to the Big Bang Theory. Yes, I admit that you may have basic "ideas", but can you practically apply these ideas and PROVE that they are true? Throw ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide together and see if you will end up with life. Throw some rocks and dust in a jar and wait a million years an dsee if you'll have life. The answer is a big no. The same thing with Abiogenesis, add RNA, proteins and DNA together and blend them together - YOU STILL WILL NOT CREATE LIFE.

Let's say for EXAMPLE that there are 26 chemical compounds A, B, C, D, E... etc all the way to Z.
No matter what you do these compounds will always stay the same. No matter which way you arrange the letters, there will still be the same amount of letters and there will always be different compounds. The law of Entropy and Conservation demands that everything must degrade and break down and energy can not be created or destroyed, only transferred. So explain to me how this process got together and link me to a reliable source.

Science demands that we apply the process of elimination and eliminate all the answers which may be deemed incorrect. I'm not saying that EVERYONE SHOULD BELIEVE IN GOD. I'm saying that I believe in God because all the possible incorrect answers have been eliminated via the process of elimination. I never implied that just because it is an unknown that must mean God did it. That's my personal belief. You can come to the same conclusion as I have if you do a bit of research on the Illuminati and you do a little more research and start eliminating possibilities which are obviously incorrect.

On a side note, science is on the side of God. We've already discovered the 'God Particle' (see LHC, Large Hadron Collider)



_





I quote from Aught3:
"If this story is supposed to teach Jepthah a lesson, why is the ultimate punishment inflicted on an innocent bystander? However, my opponent says that he, unlike God, would not make this kind of deal. Once again I'm glad to see he does not draw his morality from the example of God."



Why the ultimate punishment? Because Jepthah demanded it, so God did according to his needs. Once again, many Christians MIGHT disagree with me and many might agree with me, but I think the moral of that story is to not be hungry for blood and to not be greedy. It was inflicted on an innocent bystander because Jepthah was greedy, God probably wanted to teach him a lesson. And how do you know that a moral God wouldn't make this kind of deal? You are assuming all of this without any justification at all. As I said in my previous post, we cannot understand how God operates and thinks, so how do you decide if he would want to do this kind of deal or not? God does not lie or sin, Jepthah knew that one person would have to be sacrificed, so in the end God would HAVE TO SACRIFICE SOMEONE AT LEAST.

My opponent is simply making up morals as he strides along, and if my God disagrees with those morals, my opponent makes outrageous claims on why they are "immoral".

This post will be short than most of my previous posts because my opponent has not addressed any of the inquiries or questions that I had. Nor has he addressed any of the points. I'm asking my opponent to read all of my posts in this debate thread and address them one by one, this is exactly what I've done to him and he should do the same thing to me for a fair debate. Asking questions which I cannot answer is a horrible way to try and claim that you've won the debate.

Let me ask my opponent a question (PLEASE ANSWER THIS IN YOUR NEXT POST):

If none of us can fully understand God, why are you posing these questions regarding God and how he operates and thinks? You know fully well that I don't fully understand my God and I don't claim to be wiser than him. This doesn't equate to your victory in this debate, however. My opponent asks me why God doesn't do anything when disaster or evil/bad things strike. I DON'T KNOW - that's my answer.

I don't know does not equate to: I am wrong, you are right! I've lost the debate.

 

[Aught3]

~~~~~~~~~~
The Bible
~~~~~~~~~~
By continually referencing the Bible my opponent assumes what he needs to demonstrate; namely the existence of God. If we assume that God exists we can use the Bible to access his character and his morality but none of it can be used to prove his existence in the first place. Revelation is necessarily first person and prophesy can only be convincing to the prophet. Even if Noah's ark has been discovered it would not matter because we could still not access the motives that caused Noah to build it in the first place - there is no unambiguous line from the ark to God. Additionally, several stories in the Bible have been shown to be false including the exodus. There is no record of a mass slave escape in Egyptian records, nor any record of any Hebrews being present in the land of the Pharaohs until much later in history, and finally no archaeological trace of the 40 years in the Sinai has ever been found. Do these false stories count against the existence of God?


~~~~~~~~~~
Science & God
~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not going to debate the science behind the big bang. Suffice to say it is the best scientific model for the early development of our universe. My opponent then says that DNA, RNA, and proteins together won't create life. Since those are what life is primarily composed of, I assume he thinks something extra must be added to get life. I would like to know what scientific evidence he has for this additional 'life-force'. A god of the gaps argument is not sufficient. If you wish to posit an extra element necessary for life then you must provide positive evidence for it.

TruthfulChristian then claims to have eliminated all possible alternatives and the only remaining option is God. The evident fallacy of that statement should be clear to all. And no, the Higgs boson has not been found, though why you would think that God = mass is beyond me.


~~~~~~~~~~
God's immorality
~~~~~~~~~~
"As I said in my previous post, we cannot understand how God operates and thinks, so how do you decide if he would want to do this kind of deal or not? God does not lie or sin, Jepthah knew that one person would have to be sacrificed, so in the end God would HAVE TO SACRIFICE SOMEONE AT LEAST."

Let me repeat that: "in the end God would have to sacrifice someone". God would have to murder someone as payment for a debt, and not the person who incurred the debt but an innocent girl in his place. Surely this breaks the commandment that states: thou shalt not kill? God appears to be inconsistent in applying his moral standard. My opponent accuses me of imposing my own morality on God, damn right! And it seems to me that my morality is showing God in a very bad light. My morality allows me to condemn ritualistic murder and slavery. Does yours? Does God's?


~~~~~~~~~~
Morality
~~~~~~~~~~
"Let me ask my opponent a question (PLEASE ANSWER THIS IN YOUR NEXT POST):

If none of us can fully understand God, why are you posing these questions regarding God and how he operates and thinks? You know fully well that I don't fully understand my God and I don't claim to be wiser than him. This doesn't equate to your victory in this debate, however. My opponent asks me why God doesn't do anything when disaster or evil/bad things strike. I DON'T KNOW - that's my answer.

I don't know does not equate to: I am wrong, you are right! I've lost the debate."

I find 'I don't know' to be a perfectly acceptable answer to many questions and in this case it's fine to admit that you don't have an answer. I'm not using this as a tactic to claim victory, but I am pointing out how difficult it is for you to answer these seemingly simple moral questions. Who here would say that owning and exploiting another human being is morally acceptable? Who here would say the ritualistic murder of your virgin daughter was morally acceptable, under any circumstances? According to the Bible, God finds these acts morally acceptable. Do you agree with God or don't you? I appreciate that this is a very difficult question for Christians to answer but I think it deserves more attention than simply saying 'I don't know', especially when you've previously stated that God is the source of objective morality.


~~~~~~~~~~
PoE
~~~~~~~~~~
My opponent has also said the he 'doesn't know' why God allows so much evil in the world. I think I've shown with examples that unnecessary suffering does occur such as animals slowly starving to death during a drought or a young child dying painfully from incurable cancer. The example of heaven shows that God is powerful enough to create an alternate less-painful world, the example of his descent to Earth as Christ shows that he cares enough to help us get there, and he knows of the suffering as the Bible tells us that God "knows all things" (1 John 3:20). The way I resolve this contradiction is to deny the existence of God. If God does not exist then the gratuitous suffering I see is just the result of randomness in an uncaring universe. I ask my opponent if he thinks this is *a* logical solution to the problem even if he doesn't think it is the only possible option.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

I quote from Aught3:
"By continually referencing the Bible my opponent assumes what he needs to demonstrate; namely the existence of God. If we assume that God exists we can use the Bible to access his character and his morality but none of it can be used to prove his existence in the first place."

I believe that the Bible proves the existence of the Christian God, but this may not apply to everyone on this Forum. This is why I've made a video that addresses and examines the Bible carefully to see if it is a reliable source or not. Here is the video link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZH4YVQTxo

I'm asking my opponent to provide several verses that talk about the morality and character of God, yes God does describe himself in the Bible, but he doesn't go into extreme detail and tell us everything about him. You're using another logical fallacy when you say that the Bible has absoltely ALL the answers to everything. Although it does have all the answers to some things, it definietely doesn't have the answers to EVERYTHING - any Christian would agree with me. Technically speaking you can't "prove" anything, things are only supported depending on the amount of evidence that supports it, that's why some beliefs are more popular than others. A convincing belief with evidence will be more successful than an uncovincing belief with little or no evidence behind it.

"Thus, about 75% of the adults in both the U.S. and Canada are Christians." - http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm


Exodus has not proven to be false and you have not provided any justification for your belief that Exodus has proven to be false. Please provide references. My opponent is using another false dichotomy argument where he tries to lead me down the road where he has won the debate. And even if Exodus was false, which it's obviously NOT, how would that disprove the existence of a God? But Exodus is NOT false, it is very accurate and I haven't found any contradictions in it, so please provide references for your claims. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, just because they haven't found archaelogical evidence does not mean that these events did not occur, have we found any archaelogical evidence. You are very contradictory because you haven't found archaelogical evidence for some of the early primitive creatures that do not exist today which you claim to have evolved, so does that mean that you don't believe in Evolution BECAUSE of lack of evidence? Stop contradicting yourself please.



-



I quote from Aught3:
"A god of the gaps argument is not sufficient. If you wish to posit an extra element necessary for life then you must provide positive evidence for it."

I think it's fair to say that I haven't found an extra element necessary for life. I don't claim that there is one, please stop misquoting me. As I said, God did create man, but I don't know how. I wasn't there when he created man, but all I know is that he did create man. I'd love to prove that he did create man, but I can't - it's impossible, unless you can give me alternatives besides traveling back in time to witness it, then I would be glad to uncover the truth for you!


What I'm trying to say is that just because you can't prove something doesn't mean that it's not true.

Using Occam's Razor, we can say that Evolution DID NOT happen and we can prove that GOD DID indeed create man in his own image as it says in the Bible.

So what is Occam's Razor?

"Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor), is the meta-theoretical principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_Razor

A great example would be:

If a man goes to sleep in his house and he wakes up the next morning to find out that the garage door is open he could either conclude:

1. A magical lamp warped time and space together and created some kind of force that opened the garage door.
2. He simply forgot to close the garage door, that's why the garage door is open.

2 would simply be the only logical and correct answer because it is far less complex and cluttered. Any reasonable, rational person would conclude that number 2 is the correct answer.

Now we need to apply the LAW of Occam's Razor to the Evolutionary/Big Bang Theory and see if it passes the test.

Here are ALL the possibilities of which the Universe could have been created, along with life:

1. All physical reality is an illusion and we are in a dream, nothing is real.
2. A cosmological explosion (NOT EXPANSION) suddenly decided to explode and create RNA, DNA, proteins, etc which then, over several billions of years, these particles started to morph into life.
3. Aliens created us leaving behind no trace or evidence.
4. God created everything.

Okay, now those are the 4 possibilities that could have occured. Let's start deconstructing and breaking some of these arguments down using the principle of Occam's Razor (a scientific method).

1 is impossible, if everything is an illusion then life would be meaningless and we could do anything we want. Humans have the cognitive ability to sense dreams apart from reality.

2 is too complex to be true and it relies on luck and chance for mutations to occur without any genetic error. If there is a genetic error, a population would die off reducing any chance of Evolution, and the whole process would have to restart itself. Basically if this was true, we would have to wait an infinite amount of time for Evolution to occur, which is self-contradicting. So this option is therefore eliminated.

3 is not as complex as 1 or 2, but it is more complex than 4. So we must cross this option out.

4 is the right answer. I don't need to go on any further because this MUST BE THE RIGHT ANSWER.


So is Occam's Razor Scientific? Let's see what scientific research methods thinks about Occam's razor...

"The simpler the explanation the better. This theory is otherwise know as KISS. It is also the basis of Occam's razor. This is a theory about evidence and method." -http://scientificresearchmethods.suite101.com/article.cfm/occams_razor_and_scientific_certainty


"when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better." - Issac Newton (Created the LAWS of GRAVITY)

So now, IS THE BIG BANG THEORY SCIENTIFIC AND DOES IT SUPPORT THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION?

No. It is unscientific as I have just proven.










______












I quote from Aught3:
"God would have to murder someone as payment for a debt, and not the person who incurred the debt but an innocent girl in his place. Surely this breaks the commandment that states: thou shalt not kill? God appears to be inconsistent in applying his moral standard. My opponent accuses me of imposing my own morality on God, damn right! And it seems to me that my morality is showing God in a very bad light. My morality allows me to condemn ritualistic murder and slavery. Does yours? Does God's?"

God didn't suggest the idea of killing the daughter, Jepthah did. So it was clearly his suggestion. Here you're using a very contradicting argument. God cannot lie and he clearly warned Jepthah about a sacrifice BEFORE they agreed with the deal. Jepthah was greedy (greed is the moral of the story) and he decided to accept the deal, in the end he got what he deserved. Now your question is: Why would God kill? Because he cannot lie, and that would be in itself, breaking a commandment. How can you create your own set of morals and then accuse God of being EVIL? Sorry, that just offends me quite a bit.






_______






I quote from Aught3:
"I find 'I don't know' to be a perfectly acceptable answer to many questions and in this case it's fine to admit that you don't have an answer. I'm not using this as a tactic to claim victory, but I am pointing out how difficult it is for you to answer these seemingly simple moral questions. Who here would say that owning and exploiting another human being is morally acceptable? Who here would say the ritualistic murder of your virgin daughter was morally acceptable, under any circumstances? According to the Bible, God finds these acts morally acceptable. Do you agree with God or don't you? I appreciate that this is a very difficult question for Christians to answer but I think it deserves more attention than simply saying 'I don't know', especially when you've previously stated that God is the source of objective morality."

Sorry for my wild accusation, I now know that you are not using this as a tactic to claim victory. But these are not "simple moral questions" at all. I don't know if it's acceptable or not, I'm just going to have to take its word for it. But you can ask more experienced Christians such as Mack or Frank, these people might be able to sort you out. I'll even do you a favour and give you their YouTube channels. I am not the SMARTEST CHRISTIAN, I AM NOT THE BEST CHRISTIAN. There are other Christians who know alot more than I do and maybe these Christians could help you out and give you the answers that you're looking for. I may not know all the answers, but I am still a Christian and I still have my faith in Christ.

http://www.youtube.com/user/random331 (Mack)
http://www.youtube.com/user/franksvoice (Frank)

I believe whatever God says, I'll say as far as that. I don't doubt anything he says.







______








I quote from Aught3:
"My opponent has also said the he 'doesn't know' why God allows so much evil in the world. I think I've shown with examples that unnecessary suffering does occur such as animals slowly starving to death during a drought or a young child dying painfully from incurable cancer. The example of heaven shows that God is powerful enough to create an alternate less-painful world, the example of his descent to Earth as Christ shows that he cares enough to help us get there, and he knows of the suffering as the Bible tells us that God "knows all things" (1 John 3:20). The way I resolve this contradiction is to deny the existence of God. If God does not exist then the gratuitous suffering I see is just the result of randomness in an uncaring universe. I ask my opponent if he thinks this is *a* logical solution to the problem even if he doesn't think it is the only possible option."


You describe these events in the Bible as "unnecessary"? How do you justify this description? Saying something and not justifying it would be a weak argument. But my opponent needs to know that there are also ALOT of good things that happen in this world. How do you know how powerful God is? How do you know even if he wants to do all the things that you want him to do? Scripture also tells us that God thinks different and acts differently than us, ignorance on a particular subject doesn't mean that your false assertion is somehow made true. You resolve contradictions by denying Christ? Why? Because he doesn't cure people from cancer? We all deserve to die, we all should be rejoicing nad being joyful that we're all still alive. I provided examples in Genesis in the Garden of Eve and I proved to you that MAN casted the first sin and caused ALL EVIL IN THE WORLD. This is MAN'S FAULT. God did create a perfect world, but satan who came in a deceptive form (matthew 7:15 KJV) deceived them and made Eve eat the apple of the tree, which was what caused evil in this world. God DIDN'T CREATE an unperfect world, he created everything perfectly, but satan who is a fallen angel deceived MAN, and MAN WAS THE ONE WHO CAST THE FIRST SIN. God obviously does care as he shows alot of love and compassion in early Genesis. Please provide be Scripture references that says that god created an unperfect word.


I would like to remind my opponent that I may not post within the next few days because I am occupied with alot of university work. I may get a chance to post one or two comments in a day though.







_____







I would also like to ask an off-topic question, please PM me if you don't want this to be posted for everyone to see.

Are you a Liberal?

I'm just curious lol, I don't wish to debate about politics and economics.

 

[Aught3]

~~~~~~~~~~
The Bible & God
~~~~~~~~~~
My opponent has now said the Bible does not have the answers to everything, I agree with him there. I go a step further and say that some of the answers the Bible gives are wrong, though occasionally some of them are right. He gives an argument from popularity saying that 75% of USians and Canadians are Christians. Presumably this means that in a Muslim-majority country, Islam is correct or in India, Hinduism is correct. Arguments from popularity are fallacious.

TruthfulChristian asks how false stories in the Bible disprove God. I was merely working from his assumption that true stories, such as the ark, lend credence to the existence of God then conversely untrue stories, such as the exodus, must decrease the likelihood of God's existence. Probably the foremost expert on the archaeology of the exodus is Israel Finklestein of Tel Aviv University. Here's a fairly good news article which lays out the state of affairs.


~~~~~~~~~~
Fossilisation
~~~~~~~~~~
Fossilisation is a rare event and we do not find a fraction of those fossils which do form. What fossils we have lend their evidence in support of evolution, but they are superfluous in the face of the genetic evidence.


~~~~~~~~~~
Simplicity
~~~~~~~~~~
My opponent then tries to use the principle of Occam's razor to demonstrate the necessity of God. While I think this was a nice try, I believe he has confused simplicity for 'easiest to understand'. God is, in fact, a highly complex entity. If he acted to bring forth all of existence he must posses an immense amount of power and a highly developed mind. In short, God is ultimate complexity. Compare this with a naturalistic universe where complexity emerges from simplicity. Each step along the path to complexity is not particularly unlikely itself but the changes add up to produce, what seem like, completely improbable events. Theism says complexity just exists and brings forth more complexity, naturalism says simplicity exists and complexity emerges. When Occam's razor is applied, it is God that ends up bleeding.


~~~~~~~~~~
Slavery
~~~~~~~~~~
When asking my opponent about the morality of slavery he said he 'didn't know' and linked me to two YouTube Christians who might be able to answer my question. I had a look through their channels and Mack has a video entitled: HAM'S CURSED SEED. In this video Mack lays out the Biblical justification for Whites and Arabs to keep Blacks as slaves. I find this to be absolutely disgusting and I hope everyone reading our arguments agrees with me on this point. If the test of an ethical system is what kind of actions it endorses then I believe slavery has made a strong point for my side of the debate. Incidentally, while I was surfing YouTube I came across a JezuzFreek video on slavery here. Do you agree with his take on slavery?


~~~~~~~~~~
Morality by fiat
~~~~~~~~~~
TruthfulChristian then gives an answer to Euthythro's dilemma saying that he will believe anything that God says. This answer to the dilemma turns God into a might makes right law giver. If anything God says is automatically okay that means human sacrifice, slavery, murder, rape, and genocide are all morally acceptable. No, I cannot accept this! It goes against the totality of my moral code to inflict so much harm and suffering on other people. God is not a source of morality; we have to think for ourselves.



------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~
Off topic
~~~~~~~~~~
In response to the last two points. First, I feel we are already moving towards the end of the debate I'm almost ready to sum up. I only really wanted to do ten posts and with this one we are both up to eight. I suggest we ask each other any outstanding questions in the next post and give concluding remarks in post ten.

The liberal label doesn't apply very well in NZ, I usually vote progressive with a touch of environmentalism but I don't side with that label on every issue either.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

I quote from Aught3:
"My opponent has now said the Bible does not have the answers to everything, I agree with him there. I go a step further and say that some of the answers the Bible gives are wrong, though occasionally some of them are right. He gives an argument from popularity saying that 75% of USians and Canadians are Christians. Presumably this means that in a Muslim-majority country, Islam is correct or in India, Hinduism is correct. Arguments from popularity are fallacious.

TruthfulChristian asks how false stories in the Bible disprove God. I was merely working from his assumption that true stories, such as the ark, lend credence to the existence of God then conversely untrue stories, such as the exodus, must decrease the likelihood of God's existence. Probably the foremost expert on the archaeology of the exodus is Israel Finklestein of Tel Aviv University. Here's a fairly good news article which lays out the state of affairs."





No, I would have to disagree, I think that all the answers in the Bible are right and accurate. Show me when I gave an argument from popularity? I just quoted a website implying the amount of people that are self-proclaimed Christians, I never implied that just because alot of people believe in X that must mean it's true. My opponent has engaged once again, in a pin-style debate by calling my arguments fallacious and making false presumptions.

I never asked how false stories in the Bible disproved God. I said even IF, hypothetically, a few stories were incorrect on a minor scale, how would that support your argument? And how would you be able to prove that these stories are incorrect?






I quote from Aught3:
"Fossilisation is a rare event and we do not find a fraction of those fossils which do form. What fossils we have lend their evidence in support of evolution, but they are superfluous in the face of the genetic evidence."

If fossilisation is a rare event, why do some scientists claim to have found so many fossils? Surely there must be a few hoaxes in history where one person has claimed that they have found a 'missing link' in Evolution by claiming that they've found a fossil.

Please present this "genetic" evidence. Please go into detail next time you respond so I can deconstruct your points and argue against them, without arguments, there cannot be a debate.





I quote from Aught3:
"My opponent then tries to use the principle of Occam's razor to demonstrate the necessity of God. While I think this was a nice try, I believe he has confused simplicity for 'easiest to understand'. God is, in fact, a highly complex entity. If he acted to bring forth all of existence he must posses an immense amount of power and a highly developed mind. In short, God is ultimate complexity. Compare this with a naturalistic universe where complexity emerges from simplicity. Each step along the path to complexity is not particularly unlikely itself but the changes add up to produce, what seem like, completely improbable events. Theism says complexity just exists and brings forth more complexity, naturalism says simplicity exists and complexity emerges. When Occam's razor is applied, it is God that ends up bleeding."

How is God is a highly complex entity? Do you know him? Do you know how he operates and thinks? Do you know how he creates things? NO! You are begging the question when you say that just because he created everything, that must mean he has a finite amount of intellect. So let's compare God with the naturalistic universe shall we? If you were one millionth the size of a cell and you were living in a cell, it would be so complex, it would look like a huge city with so many mechanisms and processes which all support each other, and none of these can function properly without the other. It would look like a miniturized version of the future. And you're saying this is not complex? Do a little more research on Occam's Razor please. I hope your last sentence that I quoted was a joke, because God and Science all meet up at one point and agrees with each other, but when you apply REAL SCIENCE to Evolution Theory, there are holes everywhere and contradictions riddled within the "peer-reviewed article".




I quote from Aught3:
"When asking my opponent about the morality of slavery he said he 'didn't know' and linked me to two YouTube Christians who might be able to answer my question. I had a look through their channels and Mack has a video entitled: HAM'S CURSED SEED. In this video Mack lays out the Biblical justification for Whites and Arabs to keep Blacks as slaves. I find this to be absolutely disgusting and I hope everyone reading our arguments agrees with me on this point. If the test of an ethical system is what kind of actions it endorses then I believe slavery has made a strong point for my side of the debate. Incidentally, while I was surfing YouTube I came across a JezuzFreek video on slavery here. Do you agree with his take on slavery?"

I would have to agree with Mack's message on this one, he seems far more educated in these topics than I am. I would say that I agree with Mack's take in slavery. The slavery system works far better than today's current system. When applied properly, slavery can actually be a good thing. I don't think that hitting your slave would be a good idea, and I think that slaves should have a safe environment to work, rest and play in. But that's just my opinion based on Mack's video, I could change my take on slavery though if you were to convince me. I don't believe that slaves should be kicked around like sacks of grain and be brutually punished for small crimes if that is what you are implying.




I quote from Aught3:
"In response to the last two points. First, I feel we are already moving towards the end of the debate I'm almost ready to sum up. I only really wanted to do ten posts and with this one we are both up to eight. I suggest we ask each other any outstanding questions in the next post and give concluding remarks in post ten.

The liberal label doesn't apply very well in NZ, I usually vote progressive with a touch of environmentalism but I don't side with that label on every issue either."


Yeah, I'm just about ready to sum up. I think it would be a great idea to ask questions and give concluding remarks in post ten. But what kind of questions? Off topic questions? <--- that is my question, LOL!

Okay, I respect your political view.

 

[Aught3]

In his last post TruthfulChristian answered the final question I wanted to pose to him in this debate so I'm going to use this post to sum up my take on his arguments and why I don't find them convincing.


~~~~~~~~~~
God
~~~~~~~~~~
The most prominent argument my opponent used in an attempt to establish the existence of God was the veracity of the Bible. The Bible says that God exists and came to Earth in the form of Christ so it must be true. I called this circular reasoning because the only reason we would accept the accuracy of the Bible is if we assumed that God inspired it, yet God is the very being we were trying to prove in the first place!

My opponent then presented another reason why we should accept the word of the Bible, namely that some of the stories have been proven to be true by extra-Biblical evidence. While I'm not sure that this is the case in the example TruthfulChristian cites (the Ark) it could be true in other cases. To reply to this claim I would first say that some true stories do not make the whole book inerrant. In direct contradiction to the veracity of the Bible I cited Israel Finkelsteine's work on the archaeological record of the exodus which he has shown to be completely fictional. In light of these two criticisms on the validity and soundness of TruthfulChristian's first argument I believe we are justified in rejecting it.

The second argument considered the necessity of God as an explanatory power for unknown events such as the cause of the big bang and abiogenesis (Genesis and Genesis II if you like). The argument first says that the cause of these events is unknown and, second, claims to have found the cause. This is contradictory on the face of it. My opponent then argues that he has eliminated all other possibilities. How exactly did he rule out the (presumably) infinite number of plausible alternate explanations? By the judicial use of Occam's razor. In my last post I claimed the Christian understanding of God was more complex than the earliest state of the universe. I think this is plainly obvious, God is a personal being who was able to create the world, hear your prayers, and interceded in our world in the form of Christ. If a human is the epitome of creation and God can take on the form of a man God must be at least as complex as we are. This is why I say God is complex and Occam's razor cannot be used to support his existence.


~~~~~~~~~~
Personal belief
~~~~~~~~~~
The final argument my opponent employs is that of his own personal belief. I understand that he recognises that this is convincing to no one else but himself. I do question why he espouses his viewpoint both on this site and YouTube if it is only personal conviction - something which, by definition, cannot be shared.


~~~~~~~~~~
Morality
~~~~~~~~~~
On the issue of morality my opponent says that we need objective morality in order to avoid the changing nature of subjective morals. I agree with him on this point. However, when asked for the source of morality he says that whatever God says is automatically moral. The very definition of subjective morality is that it is based solely on product of thought with no recourse to outside facts (objectivity). If God does not reference external facts in his pronouncements (as claimed when TC answered Euthythro's dilemma), then his morality is based on his own mind and is subjective.

Additionally, several answers TruthfulChristian gave to examples of immorality in the Bible suggest that he really believes in a relativistic rather than objective morality. On the question of Jepthah's sacrifice of his daughter TruthfulChristian wanted particular circumstances in which murdering your daughter might be okay. None of the scenarios he suggested were particularly extreme so he appears to be making a case for moral relativism. Finally, after struggling to answer the question my opponent stated that under certain circumstances slavery could be a good institution. Again his morality changes depending on the circumstances. In objective morality there are certain principles which cannot be broken. Slavery, the owning of another human being as property, is morally abhorrent. It deprives them of their freedom, their ability to flourish, and their overall happiness. It is first heart crushing and second infuriating that religion can twist someone's moral code so thoroughly that they can no longer tell objective right from absolute wrong.


~~~~~~~~~~
Evolution
~~~~~~~~~~
Genetic proof for evolution: see this simple article or the more in-depth TalkOrigins discussion.



------------------------------
I'm only willing to make one more post so I you have any burning questions that you need a response to ask them in your next reply.

 

[TruthfulChristian]

I quote from Aught3:
"The most prominent argument my opponent used in an attempt to establish the existence of God was the veracity of the Bible. The Bible says that God exists and came to Earth in the form of Christ so it must be true. I called this circular reasoning because the only reason we would accept the accuracy of the Bible is if we assumed that God inspired it, yet God is the very being we were trying to prove in the first place! "

Sorry Aught3, I'd have to disagree with you there. Circular reasoning is emplyment of two particular symbols, representations, objects, ideas, etc (x) that try to prove each other's existence, purpose, or validity by using one (x) to prove another (x) and vise versa.

But I'm not using a circular argument. Y (Scripture) proves X (God), but then you say that Y is inaccurate and faulty in many levels - THIS IS WHERE YOU ARE WRONG. I have prove Y to be an accurate and reliable source by posting links and responses. I've even backed up Y to be an accurate source by providing several forms of evidence which include historical proof, eye-witness testimonies, and miracles. I will admit however, miracles is not convincing proof for the existence of a Christian God to some, but it is to me. The other two (historical proof and eye-witness testimonies) support Y (scripture). So how is it circular reasoning when you justify your second source and you provide reasonable evidence for its accuracy?


I quote from Aught3:
"My opponent then presented another reason why we should accept the word of the Bible, namely that some of the stories have been proven to be true by extra-Biblical evidence. While I'm not sure that this is the case in the example TruthfulChristian cites (the Ark) it could be true in other cases. To reply to this claim I would first say that some true stories do not make the whole book inerrant. In direct contradiction to the veracity of the Bible I cited Israel Finkelsteine's work on the archaeological record of the exodus which he has shown to be completely fictional. In light of these two criticisms on the validity and soundness of TruthfulChristian's first argument I believe we are justified in rejecting it."

So how do you suppose finding archaelogical evidence that disproves the existence of the Christian God? Exodus has certainly not been "debunked" or "deconstructed" like my opponent tries to say. And he still hasn't provided any source, links etc that disproves Exodus in the Bible. Even if you don't believe in some of the "stories" as you like to say, how does this disprove the historical evidence and thousands or/and perhaps millions of eye witness testimonies? Does this equate to them all being incorrect? It certainly DOES NOT. Noah's ark has been found, and I did provide you a link previously. NOAH'S ARK HAS BEEN FOUND, THERE ARE PICTURES OF IT EVERYWHERE. Refer to my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/truthfulchristian

There is a video somewhere in my total video uploads that show a picture of Noah's Ark. If you do the research and watch ALL of my videos from start to end, you will see.


I quote from Aught3:
"The second argument considered the necessity of God as an explanatory power for unknown events such as the cause of the big bang and abiogenesis (Genesis and Genesis II if you like). The argument first says that the cause of these events is unknown and, second, claims to have found the cause. This is contradictory on the face of it. My opponent then argues that he has eliminated all other possibilities. How exactly did he rule out the (presumably) infinite number of plausible alternate explanations? By the judicial use of Occam's razor. In my last post I claimed the Christian understanding of God was more complex than the earliest state of the universe. I think this is plainly obvious, God is a personal being who was able to create the world, hear your prayers, and interceded in our world in the form of Christ. If a human is the epitome of creation and God can take on the form of a man God must be at least as complex as we are. This is why I say God is complex and Occam's razor cannot be used to support his existence."

I did say that the mechanisms and components of God's creation (the universe) is unknown in some ways, and I did say that the entity (God) is unknown, but I never said that the CAUSE OF THESE EVENTS WERE UNKNOWN. I will admit that the universe DID HAVE A CREATOR, see? I just refuted your point. I never ever said that the cause of events were unknown. Yes, we have found the cause, but the cause of the universe must be uncaused for it to be in the field of logic, because a caused caused is illogical and only brings up the infinite regression argument, so here, we have established the uncaused being that CAUSED the universe SUPERNATURALLY that cannot be explained by NATURAL TERMS. And this whole argument is refuted when you beg the question that god MUST be COMPLEX as we are. How do you know this? Because we observe our own selves to be complex? We are the ones who defined COMPLEX in the first place. There's a quote that goes: "Another man's trash is another man's treasure". It means that we perceive things differently than God does and we operate and think differently to him. So how can you make such presumptious accusations? Show me any verse in the Bible where it specifically says that God perceives the same things as we do - JUST ONE. Occam's Razor CAN BE SUPPORTED simply because of the fact that all the other possible choices which I have eliminated using a scientific method which was created by the top scientists. There is only one choice left, and that must be the correct choice because of Occam's Razor. How do you suppose that a physically infinitely small entity just created the universe leaving behind no evidence whatsoever. And you haven't defined what TIME that this all happened? If it was an infinitely small physical entity, wouldn't it have to abide by the NATURALISTICAL LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE? It wouldn't have banged in the first place, and if the Big Bang theory were true, none of this would exist and there would still be an infinitely small physical entity. That's why the Big Bang theory is so complex. It's even more complex than the universe itself, it should be dismissed and ELIMINATED.

I quote from Aught3:
"On the issue of morality my opponent says that we need objective morality in order to avoid the changing nature of subjective morals. I agree with him on this point. However, when asked for the source of morality he says that whatever God says is automatically moral. The very definition of subjective morality is that it is based solely on product of thought with no recourse to outside facts (objectivity). If God does not reference external facts in his pronouncements (as claimed when TC answered Euthythro's dilemma), then his morality is based on his own mind and is subjective."

Yes, and we should trust the morals that God give us, because we are all filthy sinners? How can man simply trust their own mind if they are a product of random evolution? But obviously, we are a product of God and God gave us a brain, but we are still sinners simply because of the fact that Eve was the one who cast the first sin in the Garden. This is why we can't just trust man to justify their actions by claiming that their morals are correct and subjective. We must put our faith in Christ and trust the objective morality which is clearly layed out. I have never said that I create my own morals, NEVER HAVE I SAID THAT. Please stop misquoting me. I have never misquoted you because I copy and paste your comments to avoid misquotation. I urge you to do the same in future debates and possibly this one, if it lasts any longer.

I quote from Aught3:
"Additionally, several answers TruthfulChristian gave to examples of immorality in the Bible suggest that he really believes in a relativistic rather than objective morality. On the question of Jepthah's sacrifice of his daughter TruthfulChristian wanted particular circumstances in which murdering your daughter might be okay. None of the scenarios he suggested were particularly extreme so he appears to be making a case for moral relativism. Finally, after struggling to answer the question my opponent stated that under certain circumstances slavery could be a good institution. Again his morality changes depending on the circumstances. In objective morality there are certain principles which cannot be broken. Slavery, the owning of another human being as property, is morally abhorrent. It deprives them of their freedom, their ability to flourish, and their overall happiness. It is first heart crushing and second infuriating that religion can twist someone's moral code so thoroughly that they can no longer tell objective right from absolute wrong."

When did I ever say that I believe in a relativistic set of morals rather than an objective set of morals? I support everything that the Bible says, you can quote me on that. God murdering anyone is okay in my eyes. Well, you might call me a troll, and many other foolish nutters would as well, but we all deserve to die because we are filthy, no-good sinners. I cannot justify my sins, and I try to avoid sinning. But we all do it, and I deserve to die. If God decided to murder me, that in my eyes, would be okay. But I don't like humans trying to murder me, and I'll know if it's God. (Keep in mind that I am not allowing ANYONE to murder me, this is a hypothetical comment and no-one should take this seriously and try to murder me. I will know if God wants to murder me.) Aught3, you gave me a situation which was impossible and you did not describe it properly, which was why I asked for the circumstances. Your situation has not happened to anyone on this planet, this is why we need circumstances to START THINKING FROM A POINT. My morals don't change on the circumstances, my morals are objective. The morals that God gave us, the morals contained in the ancient text - THOSE ARE THE ONLY MORALS WE SHOULD ABIDE BY. My opponent thinks that owning another human as property is immoral. Well what about teachers? Teachers legally own their students in class-time (this is not legal advice, please contact a lawyer if you want accurate legal advice, I may be wrong on this) - but from what I've heard, teachers legally own their students in class-time. So is this immoral? is the whole education system "immoral" simply because you can create your own morals and try to justify your own opinions?

Trust Christ, not men who claim they know Christ 100% fully.

My opponents strongest for Evolution is this.
I will quote Aught3's strongest argument for Evolution below.


Aught3: "Genetic proof for evolution: see this simple article or the more in-depth TalkOrigins discussion.".

How is this in any way convincing? Do you think you would be convinced that Evolution is a lie if I googled "Evidence against Evolution"? Try to make your arguments convincing at least.