Raf

We have addressed these issues before, but I did so in a way that was confrontational and not constructive. I hope to reverse that this time and do so in a way that addresses the issue from an angle I'm not sure we covered directly last time. One of the criticisms we (who do not believe in gods/God) face is that in the absence of God, we have no foundation for objective morality. I'll allow Christian apologist William Lane Craig to frame the issue. Objective moral values do exist, and we can justify the existence of such values because God exists. Objective moral values cannot exist unless God does. Now, I am oversimplifying his point and I invite you to read his work on this for yourself, but I do so with a cautionary note: I believe Craig (I will abbreviate to WLC to avoid confusion with that other Craig of our common experience) uses a LOT of words to obscure the fact that his argument is ultimately circular. That is, one has to presume objective moral values exist in the first place and you must assume there is a causative relationship between those values and the existence of a God in order to reach the conclusion that God provides the foundation for objective moral values. As I will demonstrate in either this post or a future one, the problem with the assumption that God is the foundation of objective moral values is, it leaves us with no mechanism to evaluate the morality of the actions committed by or ordered by that God. Of necessity, anything that God says or does has to be morally good, even if we know they're not. For the unbeliever, this is a serious problem, because we need to evaluate the moral value system of multiple gods who disagree with each other, with each religion telling us we have no right to question the morality of their God. We cannot question Allah or Jesus or Yahweh. A Christian sure can evaluate Allah, but only against Christianity. And the Muslim has no responsibility to accept a Christian's criticism because to the Muslim, the Christian is using a false moral foundation. Simply put, Christians believe Yahweh/Jesus is/are always right, and if your morality conflicts with theirs, you are wrong and better get with the program. Muslims think Allah/Muhammad are always right and if your morality conflicts with theirs, you are wrong and better get with the program. The problem is, they cannot BOTH be right, and there can't simply be no way to evaluate the morality of a god's actions or orders. The problem is in the premise. The problem with the whole construct lies right at the beginning, with the premise that objective moral values exist. They don't. Repeat, objective moral values do not exist. In fact, if you think about it, objective moral values are oxymoronic. We need to first distinguish between types of values. Some values are objective. Say, measurements. Five feet is taller than three feet. Six feet is taller than two feet. But is six feet objectively "tall"? Well, it can be. It can also not be. If you're a horse jockey, six feet is real tall. Perhaps prohibitively so. However, if you're a basketball player, six feet is tiny. Same six feet. Tall against one standard, short against another. The objective value is feet and inches. Or centimeters, for anyone reading on the rest of the planet. So when we talk about values, we can't assume we're talking about something objective, especially when human evaluation against ANOTHER standard comes into play. And THAT is the problem with morality. Morality is an attempt at a coherent system of value judgements, but such judgments are subjective BY DEFINITION. One cannot say an action is objectively moral, objectively right or wrong, anymore than one can say something is audibly green or chromatically loud. Actions merely ARE. They do not become moral or immoral, right or wrong, good or evil until they are measured against something else. What does this mean? On social media, a believer writes: "If atheism were true sin wouldn’t be real. It would be a social construct. So really if you murdered, raped or genocide a village, then that wouldn’t be wrong. So even your worst evils aren’t evil if atheism is true." But this believer is mistaken. Badly. The first mistake is to assume that subjective morality is somehow inadequate to evaluate the goodness or evil of an action. Not only is subjective morality adequate to the task, it is the ONLY tool we have to accomplish the task! That's hard for people to process because it requires saying things like "rape is not objectively wrong; murder is not objectively wrong; genocide is not objectively wrong." Here's the thing, though: "Not objectively wrong" is not a synonym for "right, acceptable, good," or even "neutral." Good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral are all subjective value judgments. Always. (This doesn't change just because one subjugates his own moral value system for God's and calls it "objective." God's moral value system is HIS subjective value system, and all people are entitled to evaluate it to decide whether it is adequate. Rape is not objectively wrong. But it is subjectively wrong and that is an adequate basis to condemn it. Murder is not objectively wrong. But it is subjectively wrong and that is an adequate basis to condemn it. Genocide is not objectively wrong. But it is subjectively wrong and that is an adequate basis to condemn it. On what basis does one evaluate the rightness or wrongness of an action? Well, I submit you hold it against a standard that IS objective. While it is not written in stone, one can build a predictable and useful subjective value system around the premise that all actions have the potential of helping people or hurting them, contributing to our benefit or contributing to suffering. If you commit an act that contributes to the greater good without exacerbating suffering, we can generally evaluate your action to be "good" or at least "neutral." And we can test that standard against any other. Ditch the parts that don't work and improve the parts that do. This is what humanity has always done. It is why slavery was tolerated for centuries. It is why punishment for criminal activity has become less barbaric over time. It is why we look back at a movie like Reefer Madness as a virtual comedy rather than a solemn warning. It is why Amos and Andy were hilarious in their day and offensive now. Our morality evolves. Biblical morality does not. Quranic morality does not. Objective morality cannot change, by definition, because if it's objectively moral in 2025 then it must have been objectively moral in 2025 BC. If you argue "but it was a different time," then you concede, of necessity, that morality changes when times change, which is the OPPOSITE of "these actions are objectively wrong." This is how I answered the social media Christian (I will repeat his post so you don't have to scroll back up for it: "If atheism were true, sin wouldn’t be real. It would be a social construct. So really if you murdered, raped or genocide a village, then that wouldn’t be wrong. So even your worst evils aren’t evil if atheism is true." My reply: 1. Sin is not real. 2. It is a religious construct. 3. Rape, murder and genocide are wrong, which is a SUBJECTIVE determination with a rational basis in the amount of avoidable and unnecessary harm that is caused. 4. Evil is a subjective value judgment, so as long as there are people, those acts will contribute to avoidable human suffering therefore determined subjectively to be evil. 5. Subjective morality is an adequate basis to condemn evil. 6. Objective morality is an oxymoron. It does not and CAN not exist. Stopping here to allow others to weigh in and ask questions.

I was surprised to learn that Bullinger is not held in particularly high regard among Bible scholars today. But then I can't imagine any literalist/dispensationalist would be.

Cool. Not curious enough to buy it though. Not at that price. Anyone else recall examples from previous study or publication?

I got to wondering if there is a collection of these somewhere. Wouldn't that be handy? The most famous, of course, is agape as "the love of God in the renewed mind in manifestation." I can confidently say these many years later that this definition of that one word is pretty much made up out of whole cloth. It seems to be a concerted effort to work the words "renewed mind" and "manifestation" into a word that implies neither. BUT that doesn't make it necessarily a bad definition. I just think it needs to be thought out more. There were some verses where that translation makes no damn sense. Like when God so loved the world. Did he renew his mind? I mean come on. Explore. What were some of the others? I've long since discarded my TWI books, but I would be interested in exploring some of the others and analyzing whether they were accurate or self-serving. Post em if you've got em.

Thank you for acknowledging that the thread has veered away from its original topic so much that it is no longer even in the right forum.

I would like to request some caution here: the topic of this thread is questioning TWI doctrine, but if we start getting into arguments for and against the reality of claimed supernatural experience, I am concerned the discussion will no longer be "About the Way" and would instead fall rightly under "Matters of Faith." I'm trying to head this off now because I don't want people to come back later and say "why did you let so and so atheist say this and not let the Christian say that?"

And yet you are still here and haven't been banned, nor have I ever moderated your religious content except when it became explicitly political, as we explicitly articulated. Do you have ANY examples to the contrary?

I remember when my sister was first diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 2007 and I had to explain to my mother that it was basically a death sentence (which, despite the existence of exceptions to the rule, it usually is). I asked for prayers, but not once did I ask for a prayer for healing. I said I refused to rule out a miracle, but everything I said and did was resigned to the reality of the diagnosis. I remember at some point saying the only thing I wanted to pray for was her comfort. But why should that have been? Why should I not have been expecting a miracle? In retrospect, I realize that my faith by that point had been shot to hell. Years of unanswered and underanswere prayers were taking their toll to such an extent that I was "moving the goalposts" as I prayed, making it all but impossible for God not to answer the prayer. So I didn't pray for healing. I prayed for peace and comfort. Because I could talk myself into thinking that prayer was answered, seeing as the only person who could contradict me... A good reason to become an atheist is the realization that you don't believe this stuff anymore, that your prayers are hitting the ceiling if you say them out loud, and going nowhere if you don't. When you realize the failure to answer prayers is better explained by His nonexistence than by your failure to believe, THAT is a good reason to become an atheist. In my opinion. [In case I'm not making it clear, I'm not blaming God for what happened to my sister. I'm realizing that by the time that happened, deep down, I had already stopped believing, even though I hadn't fully come to that realization and wouldn't until the week she died. What happened to my sister was not God's fault. I'm sure if he could have done something he would have].

I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume the last two active moderators (at the time) had formed a "buddyship" after years being the last two active moderators. What I find interesting is calling Modgellan's integrity into question based on his (?) association with me,after failing to document a single case of biased moderating or unfair treatment of Christians. Also, I included Modgellan in my private message to show that I wasn't hiding anything.

They were talking about Modgellan

Exploring point 5, I would go even further. While Biblically defined "love" is only possible for Christians (depending on how persnickety you want to be about Agape -- its own thread, methinks), non Christians can certainly demonstrate an abundance of Phileo. We can experience and exhibit joy, patience, goodness, meekness, self-control, kindness, trustworthiness and gentleness. With the exception of Agape and possibly "trustworthiness" (again, we're depending on how persnickety we want to be about pistis), there's nothing about the fruit of the spirit that mandates Christianity. I would suspect the proper Biblical position is that anyone could exhibit the fruit of the spirit, but for the committed, faithful Christian, it's inevitable. A Christian without it would be suspect.

It's almost like that's what you were looking for. But that would be cynical.

Seems to me that's the only reason you're here. But maybe I'm wrong.

Thank you for clarifying the point you were making. If anyone actually has evidence of a double standard in moderating, please let us know. You may contact me directly at this profile or contact ModSerling, Modgellan or Pawtucket to complain. Or you could make a public spectacle like the last one did. Up to you. Just be honest. If you're just here to instigate the moderators, just admit it.

I think the bottom line is, nothing Charity said amounts to a broad attack on Christians in general that warrants a pre-emptive retaliatory attack on atheists.