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Author Topic:   Choosing a faith
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 316 of 3694 (897465)
09-05-2022 10:25 PM
Reply to: Message 314 by GDR
09-05-2022 7:13 PM


How many philosophers does it take to ...
AZPaul3 writes:
If not scientific answers then what kind? Purely emotional?
Philosophical, theological, and observational.
That second one is a subset of the first. Both come down to cerebral meanderings with no reality to support them. They have no reason, other than hubris, to exist.
Observational though, that is scientific. That is physical. Observational evidence is what is required to propose an idea that something exists in this universe.
What observational evidence leads you to your god?
Absent this I see only the hubris; your wishful thinking that your gods are real.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
“And the scales lifted from my eyes and I became one with the lord!” David Koresh prior to burning at Waco.
The scope of your internal vision has limits, traps and is subject to manipulation. It is a poor compass to point the way to reality.
I know that statement will get no agreement from any of you here but it resonates with me.
So there is the basis of your beliefs about the world. The catechism resonates with you. Gives you the warm and fuzzies.
Sorry.
God is intellectually acceptable because the idea is comforting to your psyche.
No, I was right … warm and fuzzies.
AZPaul3 writes:
What has changed your views? Experience, knowledge, yes, but what kinds of experience? What kinds of knowledge could possibly lead your mind so deep into this fantasy?
Frankly it has come from reading a wide variety of Christian scholars as well as people like Dawkins, Hitchens and all. I've read other religious books and then contrasting it all with my own life experience.
The insults just come too easy. I’ll say it anyway.
For a weak minded religious weenie steeped in fantasy you are unusually well informed and it shows.
Unfortunately you seem to have missed the points of the two scholars you mentioned.
AZPaul3 writes:
You accept at least some science. Why not all?
What science do I not believe in?
- you can’t prove a negative so don’t ask
- evidence has to be physical, not philosophical or ephemeral.
- people's deep religious beliefs are not evidence no matter how many there are
- if it has effects in this universe it will leave lots of marks that we can see
- a lack of evidence can indeed be evidence
... for just a few science concepts you seem to have issues with.
AZPaul3 writes:
Is there some other form of evidence? The evidence we're talking about is recording facts about our observations. What other kind of evidence is there?
I just answered that in another post. Philosophical evidence for one.
Sorry for the repeat.
Your philosophical evidence is internal emotional argument subject to the human condition. The answer may well depend on how many burritos you had for lunch. You have great faith in your stomach.
You though are claiming that the observation that morality can be passed on within a society. I don't disagree, but it doesn't answer the question which is, is there a universal morality or is it simply something that a group of people can agree on?
Humans evolved our morality over tens of thousands of years of intellectual and social evolution. Over all that time we would teach our moral memes to our children, we gossip and argue about them at church, we brawl over them at the pub, even go to war over them. There are many instances of great moral advances and great moral clashes throughout human history. Not everyone is on the same page.
Moralities around the world, despite a few commonalities one would expect of a social species, are so different as to preclude any common universal overlord’s dictates. No, not everyone is operating by the same set of absolute universal moral truths which means they weren’t ever absolute universal moral truths to begin with.
Our morals are the different views of the different segments of society acting on different sets of moral codes and moral values that when adopted were not absolute or universal or truths. One can even question whether they were moral. Various relative moralities are, however, the way this world’s societies have learned to exist.

Edited by AZPaul3, .

Edited by AZPaul3, .


Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 314 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 7:13 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 317 of 3694 (897466)
09-06-2022 12:07 AM
Reply to: Message 310 by GDR
09-05-2022 6:07 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
quote:
I have no problem with what you call the science based evidence for morality, although I don't see any science in the conclusion
Yes you do have a serious problem with the science-based explanation for morality. You continually misrepresent it and dismiss it.
quote:
I just don't see at as being the whole story.
In the past you have continually insisted that it cannot be the whole story. But you have never produced valid reasons. Even if you have - finally - retreated from that you are still insisting on a pointless addition which serves only to mystify.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 310 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 6:07 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 346 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 1:51 AM PaulK has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 318 of 3694 (897467)
09-06-2022 12:12 AM
Reply to: Message 308 by GDR
09-05-2022 6:04 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
Absolutely. I do believe that it is both when it comes to morality in a culture. Both through an external moral consciousness and through normal human contact.
What?
First, that is a direct lie! I am very strongly inclined to also called it deliberate! I should mention at this point that I have been studying "creation science" since 1981 and discussing it since 1985. In all those nearly four decades I have seen so much lying by creationists (and also "true Christians"), some of it demonstrably deliberate, that I am absolutely and thoroughly disgusted by that practice.
I was once a Christian, you should know. I was raised on generic Protestantism (family was only implicitly Christian, not overtly), my mother sent me to Released Time Christian Education (there was a church across the street, so no trailer on the curbside for us), I put in my pew time at our neighbors' church, and was baptized there. So I know what Christians are taught.
Though, about a year after my baptism I decided I should get serious with all this religion stuff so I started reading the Bible, from the beginning (of course), to see just what it was that I was supposed to believe. I didn't even make it out of Genesis before I realized that I just simply couldn't be any of this stuff, so I left, quite peacefully. BTW, many atheists I've met all have the same basic deconversion story: "I started reading the Bible." About 80% of the children raised on fundamentalism leave the faith and even religion altogether in early adulthood. My personal advice to parents who do not want their children to deconvert: Do not leave your child alone with a Bible!
The error I committed in my initial deconversion was that I was reading the Bible literally. In the intervening years (that particular church is long gone physically) I have not been able to determine the particular denomination nor theology of that particular church, but I have little doubt that it was consumed by biblical literalism, which ironically was how I had set out to interpret the Bible as I was reading it, so, according to my own church, I was reading it wrong. Yet the literalistic manner in which I was reading it was what made me an atheist more than a half-century ago.
Half a decade later, like circa 1970, the "Jesus Freak Movement" had started. I had made a huge mistake trying to interpret the Bible literally. Now there was an entire movement that was insisting in precisely that!
By that time, I had acquired some linguistical expertise, enough to have a basic understanding of how language works. About how translation works (quick study: it's not word-for-word substitution, but rather an act of interpretation -- you interpret what the original text says and you translate it into English).
You've been arguing against that point and now you suddenly pull a bait-and-switch? Why does this smell to me like a dishonest creationist BS move? (admittedly, "dishonest creationist" is a redundant term)
Who the frak was talking about morality in a culture? We were talking about rocks rolling down a hill as an example of the use (and abuse on your part) of evidence.
Gods have no use for morality; only humans do (well, of human morality, since morality also appears in other species). Without humans, morality has no meaning. Also, morality has nothing to do with religion, except that religion always tries to take all the credit. Basically, societies evolve their morality and then use religion and its myths to justify and perpetuate their morality through the generations.
As I worked out in my topic, Probability of It Being Their Own Particular God, there have about 288,000 gods in human existence, each one with its own moral code. Your own god, who is supposed to be the source of all human morality (apparently), does not speak for all those other gods' cultures. So with only about 1/288,000-th of the overall input (3.4722×10(-6)), your own personal god-thingee is the actual source of all human morality? Really?
O

This message is a reply to:
 Message 308 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 6:04 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 319 of 3694 (897468)
09-06-2022 3:16 AM
Reply to: Message 312 by GDR
09-05-2022 6:27 PM


GDR writes:
Certainly, but as he said it only makes it plausible ,which means that it is something one can choose to believe or reject for another possibility.
Neither of us can rationally believe or reject these hypotheses because neither of us has the physics to argue in either direction. We can only wait and see which way the consensus falls and hope for experimental confirmation.
That's the scientific way. The religious way is to reject any information that throws doubt on personal belief long after it has achieved foundational status. The theory of evolution is the obvious example. The straws that you are trying to grasp at are getting increasingly small and very far away.
I am simply saying that he agrees that science has limitations and I used the example he gave.

Also, what I was saying has nothing to do about my specifically Christian beliefs. The point is I am simply trying to make a case for an intelligence that is responsible for our existence.
It's not particularly surprising to hear that science has not yet found the answers to everything. But that is not an excuse for you to insert your particular beliefs where you think the holes are. If you place your god in those holes, you'll find he gets squeezed as knowledge increases.
Can you define what you mean by a god. Would a deistic god be included in that or are you just including any god that humans have believed in
You're asking an atheist to define a god? Humph…
Let's start with excluding out-of-hand all the thousands of gods, ghouls and gremlins that humans have believed in. They're all plainly barking mad human inventions.
Deism? An unknown and unknowable entity that created a universe at least 13.7 billion years ago, then took no further interest in it? The idea is as relevant to humans trying to scratch a hard life here as a universe that created itself from nothing. ie an irrelevance to all but the idiots who think that they can sit in an armchair and just invent 'answers' that make them feel comforted.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.

"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 312 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 6:27 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 350 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 11:35 AM Tangle has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 320 of 3694 (897469)
09-06-2022 5:27 AM
Reply to: Message 314 by GDR
09-05-2022 7:13 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
quote:
Philosophical, theological, and observational.
I find my experience to see things as Lewis did when he made this statement.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
So basically you believe in Christianity because you force-fit everything into your world-view. You imagine “evidence” because you believe.
quote:
Now obviously that is not a scientific statement, but it is consistent with my own experience in how I understand my life and the world I live in. I know that statement will get no agreement from any of you here but it resonates with me.
Oh, I’ll agree that your mental problems are related to your beliefs, but I think you have cause and effect the wrong way round,

This message is a reply to:
 Message 314 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 7:13 PM GDR has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 321 of 3694 (897470)
09-06-2022 8:37 AM
Reply to: Message 291 by GDR
09-05-2022 3:12 PM


After seeing your comments I went and listened to the lecture because you reported him saying a few things I would never have expected. Here's the Laurence Kruass talk titled A Universe from Nothing given on July 17, 2013, at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University:
Apparently God in the person of Alan Guth was in the audience, click on his name. Apparently there was also a Nobel laureate in the audience but Krauss doesn't name him. It wasn't Guth, though he deserves one and may yet receive one. He's only 75, so there's a good chance.
GDR writes:
However he goes on to say that it doesn't explain the existence of particles in the first place.
I don't think he ever said or implied this, and I was listening for it. He did refer to many things that can't yet be explained, but I don't think that was one of them. I think if he were going to say something somewhat along those lines he would likely have talked about quarks or just matter in general. He did often refer to matter and energy, but particles not so much. The mention of particles that I best recall was when he showed the animation of how the interior of the proton is a seething caldron of smaller particles flitting in and out of existence.
He mentions the multi-verse in saying that if that is the case then science won't be able to investigate them.
He also said that he believes that there are inferences we can make about the multi-verse. and this was, I think, a reference to the possibility that if the multi-verse exists it would have effect on our own, i.e., produce evidence, but I can't be sure that's what he meant because he said so little. Where's Son Goku when you need him?
That takes me back to that front page headline in Scientific American which asks the question: "Is an Entire Universe Silently Woven Into Our Own".
You're referring to Dark Worlds: A Journey to a Universe of Unseen Matter from the November, 2010, issue. The article was about dark matter. The "shadow cosmos, woven silently into our own" made up of dark matter is an intriguing possibility. No evidence exists yet, but that could change.
If that is the case then is it possible that an interwoven universe impacts the world we live in here?
Dark matter already has an impact on our universe through gravity. If it has other effects we haven't discovered any yet. We haven't even detected a single dark matter particle yet, though several detectors around the world are searching diligently for hints of them.
Then I would wonder if the connecting point between the two might possibly be through consciousness.
No. Just no. Maybe you can find some scientists somewhere speculating along these lines, but Krauss is a particle physicist and he would view this idea the same way I do: woo.
...the atheistic position, as I understand it, involves making us gods in the sense that right and wrong are simply human constructs, which could well make that position of being one of the available gods.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How could you get so much wrong in so few words. You are a model of economy.
Moral right and wrong are not "human constructs." A sense of right and wrong is an inherent part of us as human beings. Some things *are* human constructs, such as smiling where, for example, for some emotions the Japanese response is opposite to the American. But that murder is wrong is not a human construct. All cultures universally hold murder wrong because it is inherent in our make up and not a construct.
And atheists do not see things in terms of gods. Just like anyone an atheist can have a God complex, but atheists no more desire be be seen as gods than any other demographic group.
You consistently repeat the error of seeing people who don't believe in your God, who don't even believe he exists, as nonetheless believing in your God anyway but just denying he exists out of convenience so that they don't have to follow his rules. The wrongheadedness of this view has been explained like a million times. I don't understand how you could continue to be so determinedly blind. It would help if you believed that people really do believe what they say they believe.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 291 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 3:12 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 358 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 4:22 PM Percy has replied
 Message 370 by AZPaul3, posted 09-07-2022 6:14 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 322 of 3694 (897471)
09-06-2022 9:07 AM
Reply to: Message 293 by GDR
09-05-2022 3:27 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
GDR writes:
I would contend that science should impact our theology but not the other way around.
Percy writes:
You should live this rather than just say it.
I believe that I do.
I don't think that you do. Here's just one tiny example of you arguing for your theology at the expense of science from a very recent message, Message 276:
gdr writes:
...I contend that the world of science points towards design and IMHO that requires a designer.
You're using your theology to argue that science should move toward the idea of a designer.
I'm just saying that some of the conclusions drawn from science around here are simply plausible conclusions,...
"Plausible conclusions" is the phrase Krauss used when describing speculations on the bleeding edge of science. I don't think anything anyone has said in this thread lies in the speculative sphere nor on the bleeding edge.
...such as observing that morality is naturally infectious (which I agree with),...
Someone argued this? I must have missed it. If there are studies indicating this then keep in mind that psychology is a very soft science. It is the tomato of fruit.
...but then claiming it is scientific that there is nothing more involved.
Since science includes the study of everything in the entire universe, that leaves only woo.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 293 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 3:27 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 359 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 4:40 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 323 of 3694 (897472)
09-06-2022 10:25 AM
Reply to: Message 294 by GDR
09-05-2022 3:31 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
I certainly always knew that I can't know the truth but I can conclude what I believe to be true.
Why don't consensuses form around the timeless truths common to all religions? Might there be a lack of evidence?
Percy writes:
I think what you're trying to say is that science is tentative, always ready to change in light of new evidence or improved insights.
...and so should our religious beliefs.
So let me take this and run with what I see as the obvious implications. Presumably you agree with the vast majority of religious believers that their religion contains timeless truths, but since you think religious beliefs should be tentative you therefore don't believe that we can know what those timeless truths are for certain. We instead have to seek them out and decide for ourselves what the timeless truths are. And even though we can become convinced we've found a timeless truth, our opinion of that might later change.
How is that any different from there not really being any such thing as a timeless truth?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 294 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 3:31 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 360 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 4:48 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 324 of 3694 (897475)
09-06-2022 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 296 by GDR
09-05-2022 3:51 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
Sure, but posters here claim that because there is no evidence that there is a god as evidence that there isn't. Bit of a double standard possibly?
Everybody here absolutely knows that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Perhaps sometimes we express ourselves imprecisely in a way that leaves open the possibility that we don't see it this way, but trust me, we do. We absolutely do not see the absence of evidence of God as evidence that there is no God.
But the lack of evidence that God has any impact on our lives does lead us to conclude that we're free to conduct ourselves without taking Him into account. Science can't rule God out, but science has not as yet, Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute to the contrary, ruled even a hint of God in.
I'm perplexed that this has to be said over and over again. It's like you're looking for a wording that expresses what you apparently would like to think we believe but without causing us to raise any objections. That's not going to happen. We really do believe what we're telling you we believe, and every time you tell us that we actually believe something different from that then we're naturally going to object.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 296 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 3:51 PM GDR has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 325 of 3694 (897476)
09-06-2022 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 289 by Phat
09-05-2022 3:03 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
Phat writes:
I would be more worried about indoctrination if I had a strong atheist for a counselor.
Because that's what your Christian counsellors are telling you to be worried about.

"Oh no, They've gone and named my home St. Petersburg.
What's going on? Where are all the friends I had?
It's all wrong, I'm feeling lost like I just don't belong.
Give me back, give me back my Leningrad."
-- Leningrad Cowboys

This message is a reply to:
 Message 289 by Phat, posted 09-05-2022 3:03 PM Phat has not replied

  
Stile
Member
Posts: 4295
From: Ontario, Canada
Joined: 12-02-2004


(2)
Message 326 of 3694 (897478)
09-06-2022 12:15 PM
Reply to: Message 208 by GDR
09-02-2022 6:10 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
I can’t accept the belief that intelligence and morality can evolve from mindless origins. I can accept that evolution started from an intelligent creator without need for further involvement leaving only natural processes.
Fair enough, and this may just be contextual wording so I'm going to ask: Can you be like Puddleglum?
quote:
I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
-Puddleglum
Your statement says "I can't accept the belief that intelligence and morality can evolve from mindless origins."
Puddleglum's says "I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."
Puddleglum seems to say "I don't care if Narnia doesn't exist... I can accept that Narnia doesn't exist... but I'm going to live as a Narnian anyway"
Can you be like Puddleglum and accept that intelligence and morality can evolve from mindless origins (if it were so...) but just live as a God-Follower anyway?
I think there's a crucial difference here.
As I can accept that a God can exist.
A God can be shown to exist tomorrow - and I would immediately accept it - and live my life following Love (and not God) anyway.
But, if you cannot even accept "mindless origins" even if it were true, and still believe the way you believe... then perhaps you're beliefs and your idea of "truth" are entangled. Puddleglum's beliefs and "truth" were entangled as well, but he was able to separate them - can you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 208 by GDR, posted 09-02-2022 6:10 PM GDR has replied

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 327 of 3694 (897479)
09-06-2022 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 312 by GDR
09-05-2022 6:27 PM


GDR writes:
Certainly, but as he said it only makes it plausible ,which means that it is something one can choose to believe or reject for another possibility.
Krauss was discussing speculations. Scientists do not accept or reject speculations - that would be premature. They'll naturally have opinions on the likelihood of a speculation. You might recall that on some topics Krauss said he was only offering his opinion. All speculation means is that scientists might want to keep it in mind as a possibility.
But some speculations aren't even rational and would be rejected out of hand, for example, that consciousness might be the moderator between the physical world and the dark matter world.
Frankly it took over an hour to listen to it and I don't want to spend the time to hunt it down. It was a casual comment made during his discussion on how the laws of the universe could have come into existence.
I think it's outstanding that you listened to it, but I think Tangle and I are both a bit puzzled at some of your takeaways.
Tangle writes:
=GDR]Also of course if his explanation is plausible, (which I agree it is), then other explanations are also plausible.
That's a non sequitur. Something specific being possible does not make something different possible.
If something is only plausible then by definition we know that there is something else, defined or not, as possible.
This is true but isn't the point Tangle was making. Just because one possibility is deemed plausible says nothing about the plausibility of other possibilities, which was Tangle's point. Your ideas must earn their plausibility on their own merits.
I am simply saying that he agrees that science has limitations and I used the example he gave.
Actually you were riffing on an old Scientific American article about dark matter. Offering consciousness as a connecting point between normal and dark matter isn't even wrong. It's just silly.
Also, what I was saying has nothing to do about my specifically Christian beliefs. The point is I am simply trying to make a case for an intelligence that is responsible for our existence.
How does one make a case without evidence?
Tangle writes:
How many times GDR? Atheism is a lack of belief in god - any and all gods. NOTHING ELSE! Please, please, please stop trying to make it more than that. Morality has nothing to do with atheism and vice versa. They are independent variables.

Can you define what you mean by a god. Would a deistic god be included in that or are you just including any god that humans have believed in.
This is just never going to end, is it. For the zillionth time, it doesn't matter whether it's a god, the God, many gods, leprechauns, ogres, griffins, unicorns or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. People who demand evidence for what they accept as likely true will reject any claims that lack evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 312 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 6:27 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 364 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 5:14 PM Percy has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 328 of 3694 (897481)
09-06-2022 12:39 PM
Reply to: Message 313 by GDR
09-05-2022 6:50 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
I guess that we need a clearer definition of murder.
The definition of murder is pretty clear: unlawful homicide. The definition of homicide is also pretty clear: killing a human being.
The wishy-washy areas are "human" (when does a fetus become human?) and "unlawful". We make the laws, so we can make it legal for a soldier to kill the enemy (though there are also such things as war crimes). We can make it legal for the government to kill people for murder or for being Jewish. (Are Jews human?)
GDR writes:
It isn't about certainty but about an unprovable truth that we can have faith in.
There's a saying about erring on the side of caution. As Jesus pointed out, nobody is qualified to cast the first stone. And to paraphrase an opponent of capital punishment, There may well be some criminals who deserve to die but we are not qualified to decide which ones.
When in doubt, don't kill. We can't always be certain that we did the right thing but we can often be certain that we didn't do the wrong thing.

"Oh no, They've gone and named my home St. Petersburg.
What's going on? Where are all the friends I had?
It's all wrong, I'm feeling lost like I just don't belong.
Give me back, give me back my Leningrad."
-- Leningrad Cowboys

This message is a reply to:
 Message 313 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 6:50 PM GDR has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 329 of 3694 (897482)
09-06-2022 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 313 by GDR
09-05-2022 6:50 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
I guess that we need a clearer definition of murder. I am strongly opposed to capital punishment, however, I don't think that I would call it murder.
Give it whatever name you like. When is it ever right to take a human life? I grant that the answer is not "never," and a sincerely well thought out answer would be very detailed and complex, but whatever that answer is should be roughly equivalent to "almost never."
But when you've heard the stories of German atrocities and the Germans are storming the town that holds everyone near and dear to you, what do you do? Interestingly, if I understand Quakerism, they rely upon someone else defending them, but I don't think this avoids complicity.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 313 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 6:50 PM GDR has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 330 of 3694 (897484)
09-06-2022 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 314 by GDR
09-05-2022 7:13 PM


Re: What does God want of Us
GDR writes:
AZPaul3 writes:
Is there some other form of evidence? The evidence we're talking about is recording facts about our observations. What other kind of evidence is there?
I just answered that in another post. Philosophical evidence for one.
What is philosophical evidence? Can you name anything that's become a consensus because of the accumulation of philosophical evidence?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 314 by GDR, posted 09-05-2022 7:13 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 365 by GDR, posted 09-07-2022 5:22 PM Percy has replied

  
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