Recruiting Forum Off Topic Thread III

[Bassmaster_Vol]

What if you all decided that whoever drew the short straw abides by the decision?

You're assuming that I would agree with that. The point is, since there is a God, no matter what the consensus is, there is a standard. Murder is murder and it is evil no matter the situation. I would not do it.

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil...That was the temptation.

 

[bignewt]

And human opinion can be scary. Right now we have people who have the opinion that having a penis doesn't make you a male.

Dude why do you always circle back to that? Kinda concerning.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

It's not? I dunno man, I'm not a card carrying member of any of these clubs you guys are discussing. I'm not extreme one way or the other. I grew up catholic, went to mass every Sunday, Sunday school, I was baptized, etc...but as I got older I did some thinking and changed. Then decided I didn't agree with heaven and hell and all the extreme beliefs religious folks have. And it's cool if you do, I don't mind. Most people believe in some form of "god". I get it. My wife does, she gets upset at times because I don't.

I doubt there's a god, but maybe there is, I don't have proof either way. But as a betting man my money is on there not being one. Personally, I think it was all made up to keep the masses in check, give people hope and something to live for, slow down the chaos if you will. Or something like that.

Either way, I don't need the Bible or god to live a good, clean life, raise a family, be a good citizen and love my friends and family. But if some people do, that's cool too. I get it. Or at least I think I do, somewhat.

What group should I be in, IYO?

First, I have never said that you needed God to live a moral life. That is where rooster or whatever his name is was misrepresenting me. Just that you have no reason to because without God morality is simply your opinion and nothing more.

But anyways, usually agnosticism means that you are skeptical but unsure. You're not an atheist in that you do not deny that there is no God, there could be, but you just don't know. That is the typical definition of agnosticism.

I just find it interesting that I have never met or read an agnostic who lives and thinks as though it is likely that God does exist. Usually they are atheists who, for some reason, decide to say agnostic. I just don't know why they don't just claim atheism when their lives and thinking reflect atheism and not the possibility that God exists.

So, if as you said in the post I quoted, you believe that God was made up, you're an atheist, and not an agnostic imo.

 

[BigZiti09]

It's not? I dunno man, I'm not a card carrying member of any of these clubs you guys are discussing. I'm not extreme one way or the other. I grew up catholic, went to mass every Sunday, Sunday school, I was baptized, etc...but as I got older I did some thinking and changed. Then decided I didn't agree with heaven and hell and all the extreme beliefs religious folks have. And it's cool if you do, I don't mind. Most people believe in some form of "god". I get it. My wife does, she gets upset at times because I don't.

I doubt there's a god, but maybe there is, I don't have proof either way. But as a betting man my money is on there not being one. Personally, I think it was all made up to keep the masses in check, give people hope and something to live for, slow down the chaos if you will. Or something like that.

Either way, I don't need the Bible or god to live a good, clean life, raise a family, be a good citizen and love my friends and family. But if some people do, that's cool too. I get it. Or at least I think I do, somewhat.

What group should I be in, IYO?

You being alive and there being a universe is pretty good evidence of there is a God. A cosmic accident takes more faith than believing in a creator IMO.

Whether or not you can live a "good" life without a Bible is irrelevant. Plenty of "bad" people are Christians and plenty of "good" people are not.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

Thank you for representing my position correctly. This is it, you understand the position that I have stated about the atheistic worldview. You do not understand the Christian worldview though. Morality isn't just "God told you so," it is that there is a standard. There are objective moral values because there is an objective standard: God. Without God there is no objective standard as you have rightfully said.

And yes, plenty of societies will prescribe value to humans and they will have moral values. But they cannot tell you why other than it feels right to them. In an atheistic worldview there is no reason to. That is the point. Why should you prescribe value to them? Hitler did not prescribe value to the Jews, and as you pointed out, in an atheistic worldview all we can say is that it is just our opinion that Hitler was wrong.

If you can see the dangerous implications of this I don't know what to tell you.

That standard basically comes down to “God said so,” though. And the judeo-Christian god has ordered genocide before. That has some dangerous implications as well.


If you wanna know a reason why Hitler should have prescribed value to the Jews, I’d say there’s a pretty common sense answer: his obsessive racism against Jews and lack of decency towards them fore his country and large chunks of the world apart.


In the end, saying “IMO, what hitler did was evil” isn’t all that different than “I believe in my God’s morality and it prescribes that what’s Hitler did was evil.”

 

[BigZiti09]

Dude why do you always circle back to that? Kinda concerning.

Fresh on my mind for one but to me it's also the scariest because it makes zero sense.

 

[Sleegro]

Thank you for representing my position correctly. This is it, you understand the position that I have stated about the atheistic worldview. You do not understand the Christian worldview though. Morality isn't just "God told you so," it is that there is a standard. There are objective moral values because there is an objective standard: God. Without God there is no objective standard as you have rightfully said.

And yes, plenty of societies will prescribe value to humans and they will have moral values. But they cannot tell you why other than it feels right to them. In an atheistic worldview there is no reason to. That is the point. Why should you prescribe value to them? Hitler did not prescribe value to the Jews, and as you pointed out, in an atheistic worldview all we can say is that it is just our opinion that Hitler was wrong.

If you can see the dangerous implications of this I don't know what to tell you.

With all of what you just said here, it seems like the important part is worshiping God. Can you get morality through worshiping God in any religion? Even Star Wars nerds can find morality in The Force. In Christianity, isn't there only one God? So at the very least, all monotheistic religions are worshiping the same God? They just have different ways of doing it, usually because of origins in different regions and cultures in the world. But the base message about morality in pretty much every religion almost always comes down to the golden rule. Otherwise, if that is not the case, and other religions are worshiping another God, then Christianity is really a polytheistic religion who focuses their worship on one God of many perceived "lesser gods".

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

That standard basically comes down to “God said so,” though. And the judeo-Christian god has ordered genocide before. That has some dangerous implications as well.


If you wanna know a reason why Hitler should have prescribed value to the Jews, I’d say there’s a pretty common sense answer: his obsessive racism against Jews and lack of decency towards them fore his country and large chunks of the world apart.


In the end, saying “IMO, what hitler did was evil” isn’t all that different than “I believe in my God’s morality and it prescribes that what’s Hitler did was evil.”

No there is a massive difference in those two statements. Evil is evil, It is always evil. No matter what we might think. Because there is a standard. But if there is no standard, there is no such thing as evil. No such thing as good either. How could there be when there is no standard?

 

[bignewt]

Fresh on my mind for one but to me it's also the scariest because it makes zero sense.

Show me on the doll where the transsexual touched you.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

With all of what you just said here, it seems like the important part is worshiping God. Can you get morality through worshiping God in any religion? Even Star Wars nerds can find morality in The Force. In Christianity, isn't there only one God? So at the very least, all monotheistic religions are worshiping the same God? They just have different ways of doing it, usually because of origins in different regions and cultures in the world. But the base message about morality in pretty much every religion almost always comes down to the golden rule. Otherwise, if that is not the case, and other religions are worshiping another God, then Christianity is really a polytheistic religion who focuses their worship on one God of many perceived "lesser gods".

I'm not sure I understand completely your point. But no, we are not worshipping the same God. The Christian God revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Other religions deny Christ and thus we are not worshipping the same God.

But further, the argument is that there is a standard of morality for everyone. Whether you claim to be a Christian or a "Star Wars nerd", there is a standard, and it isn't the force. The existence of God means that there is a true objective standard of morality. If God does not exist, there is no objective standard and morality becomes opinion.

Hume knew this, as did Nietzsche, as does Silverman, Dawkins, and any other consistent atheist.

 

[Ron Swanson]

You being alive and there being a universe is pretty good evidence of there is a God. A cosmic accident takes more faith than believing in a creator IMO.

Whether or not you can live a "good" life without a Bible is irrelevant. Plenty of "bad" people are Christians and plenty of "good" people are not.

Me being alive is pretty amazing, life in general is amazing, you're right. IMO, if "God" did all of this that god is very different than what most people believe. The Bible, all it's teachings, etc are just made up by man. In my little brain it seems insane to think that a god who made the world, stars, galaxies, and everything beyond had anything to do with the Bible or any other religion on earth. Our wonderful planet is just a tiny spec of dust in the grand scheme of it all. We're all very lucky to be here and I'm grateful for my life.

 

[BennesseeVols]

I’m saying that slavery was completely different. It had nothing to do with race. You weren’t enslaved because you were black or any other color.

Slavery was a system in their economy. If you lost a job and could not support your family, there was no welfare. You could however, volunteer to become a slave until you either worked off your debt or earned enough to pay it off. That does not mean that some slave owners weren’t harsh, I’m sure some were. But in the majority of cases this was a business decision people had to make to survive, not something they were forced into and nothing to do with race. It would be more applicable to employer/employee relationship than to American slavery that people so often think of.

So what are the NT writers doing when they call for slaves to obey their masters? Are they condoning slavery as a system? No, but the economy was based off of slavery. Paul was not going to call for a slave revolt to try and overturn the entire economic system of the day. . If he were it would not only have major economic impact on the society of the day, but it would have also led to the massacre and imprisonment of many Christian people. But the bottom line is that the gospel is not spread through revolution, but through preaching. Christianity does not involve picking up the sword and forcing it on people, tho some have wrongly done that.

Dude slavery is slavery. The vast majority of slaves were of a different ethnicity, culture, country, etc. Than their masters. They did not volunteer to be slaves they were forced into it by ppl with power over them. Don't try and sugar coat it because it's in your magic sky fairy's book. That's messed up.

 

[bignewt]

Me being alive is pretty amazing, life in general is amazing, you're right. IMO, if "God" did all of this that god is very different than what most people believe. The Bible, all it's teachings, etc are just made up by man. In my little brain it seems insane to think that a god who made the world, stars, galaxies, and everything beyond had anything to do with the Bible or any other religion on earth. Our wonderful planet is just a tiny spec of dust in the grand scheme of it all. We're all very lucky to be here and I'm grateful for my life.

I'm with Ron on this but I do feel the presence of a higher power, a grand design. I just can't wrap my head around a benevolent God that would let his creation suffer in so many ways and condemn billions of souls to hell because they have not accepted his son died for their sins.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

extreme oversimplification. They were living in a theocracy and has nothing to do with New Covenant Christianity. The New Testament teaches this very clearly.

If you’re claiming there’s an unchanging, universal morality, then it does matter and hiding behind the “that was the OT” excuse is ignoring that.

You may say that, but they might not. And you can't look them in the eye and say what you are doing is wrong. It would just be your opinion. And they outnumber you so if our morality is based off of consensus, then they must be right.

This hypothetical works exactly the same if your a woman in Jericho surrounded by a group of Israelite soldiers who outnumber you.


Thought experiments like this are interesting and all, but often don’t reflect any type of real world dynamic. Trolley problems are fun to think about and can lead to reflection about our values, but at the end of the day don’t mean a lot.


Yes, in this hypothetical nobody can definitively state what is right and wrong, because there is no cosmic, universal rights and wrong. This points to the importance of putting great thought and care into our rules of law and the need of meaningful law for a society to function.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

Me being alive is pretty amazing, life in general is amazing, you're right. IMO, if "God" did all of this that god is very different than what most people believe. The Bible, all it's teachings, etc are just made up by man. In my little brain it seems insane to think that a god who made the world, stars, galaxies, and everything beyond had anything to do with the Bible or any other religion on earth. Our wonderful planet is just a tiny spec of dust in the grand scheme of it all. We're all very lucky to be here and I'm grateful for my life.

You are not alone.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" Psalm 8:3-4

This is why God's grace is amazing. That of all the universe, man is the chief of His creation for we alone are made in His image. He is mindful of us because He created us.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

Dude slavery is slavery. The vast majority of slaves were of a different ethnicity, culture, country, etc. Than their masters. They did not volunteer to be slaves they were forced into it by ppl with power over them. Don't try and sugar coat it because it's in your magic sky fairy's book. That's messed up.

This is not true and shows that you have not researched it but just read American slavery back into the text.

I would hope people have more respect for your statements and writings than you are showing for the New Testament.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

You're assuming that I would agree with that. The point is, since there is a God, no matter what the consensus is, there is a standard. Murder is murder and it is evil no matter the situation. I would not do it.

Would you be a conscientious objector if there was a war? If god told you to kill someone, would you?

 

[BigZiti09]

Show me on the doll where the transsexual touched you.

lol

 

[jakez4ut]

This isn’t as big of a “gotcha” as you think it is. No creator=no one all encompassing system of morality=morality is based upon the consensus of societal values. Saying “IMO, Auschwitz was evil, but I can’t claim some some cosmic, infallible reason for it” isn’t all that different from “IMO, Auschwitz was evil, because I believe God said so.” You’re getting to the same place. One person just isn’t claiming to speak for god.


Not necessarily true. Plenty of societies with little or no judeo-Christian influence prescribe or have prescribed a higher value to humans than other animals. It’s not like nobody believed humans had more value than animals before we had Christianity.

yep. and this is what gets me to stop in my tracks on the whole "the NT told me it's my obligation to tell you you're wrong".

i'm sure followers of Islam and Buddhism would take issue with it.

as an example, and understanding it's fiction based on non fiction, but the show Vikings delves into this as Christian missionaries try to change the Norsemen from following their god Oden, to the Christian God. it's an interesting dynamic to see, as a role play, how some of those conversations go in the show. just as the christian believes, so does the Norseman, neither understanding why the other can't/won't see the perceived fallacy in each other's view point. it raises some interesting questions, and points, on both sides. the prevailing theme is intolerance on both sides.


but both believe that by the grace of some definition divinity, they've been empowered, and obligated, to ONLY see things from their perspective. and conflict ensues.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

Show me on the doll where the transsexual touched you.

I wonder what a dice through Ziti’s search history might show show lol he sure seems caught up on chicks with d***s 😂

 

[bignewt]

Would you be a conscientious objector if there was a war? If god told you to kill someone, would you?

I have put a lot of thought into that. If i would have been drafted to go to Vietnam I would have been Canada bound. Of course that is the hindsight of seeing how completely senseless that police action was. If it was to preserve our country on our soil, I would join up.

 

[bignewt]

Listening to Father John Misty's new album that dropped today. Very very good.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

If you’re claiming there’s an unchanging, universal morality, then it does matter and hiding behind the “that was the OT” excuse is ignoring that.

I thought that we were having a thoughtful and respectful discussion? Lets not start throwing out the "hiding behind" jabs now. But no, I did not say "that was the OT." I said that was under a theocracy which is different than what we are living under now as the NT makes clear. Has nothing to do with changing morality. God was taking His people into the promise land and the people that Israel encountered wanted to kill them. They were evil people and God, who is perfect in righteousness judged them through the Israelites. That is His prerogative and not ours. We do not live in a theocracy now, nor are we gaining entrance into a promised land in this world. This is why context is of extreme importance.

Yes, in this hypothetical nobody can definitively state what is right and wrong, because there is no cosmic, universal rights and wrong. This points to the importance of putting great thought and care into our rules of law and the need of meaningful law for a society to function.

I disagree. We can definitely state what is right and wrong because there is an objective standard. To deny an objective standard is to deny the existence of real good and evil and, I'm sorry, but evil is not just opinion. It is reality.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

I'm with Ron on this but I do feel the presence of a higher power, a grand design. I just can't wrap my head around a benevolent God that would let his creation suffer in so many ways and condemn billions of souls to hell because they have not accepted his son died for their sins.

You feel Him because He is your creator.

A lot of people have this second objection and I feel the weight of it for sure. But it is more than just not accepting His Son. It has to do with who God is. God is holy. We do not fully understand holiness because we have never seen or experienced it. But God is Qadosh or altogether separate from us. He is holy and because He is holy He must punish sins. No one would describe a judge as being righteous if he knowingly let a criminal go free. In fact they would want him to be disbarred. God cannot simply overlook sin or He would not be holy. His character demands the punishment of sin. This is the teaching of the Bible. This is why Christ had to come. This is the gospel message. Sin deserves punishment and so Christ came as a "propitiation for our sins." Propitiation means "to satisfy or appease." Christ's death on the cross satisfied God's holy wrath against sin. In other words, Christ endured the punishment that we deserve on the cross. Christ took the punishment so that you and I, if we trust in Him through faith, would not have to. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). The punishment has been paid and God offers it as a free gift. Believe in Christ and you have nothing to worry about. Not only are you forgiven of your sins and saved from the judgment that is to come, but you are actually adopted into the family of God (1st John 3:1-3), you become a son, and an heir of an inheritance. God actually rewards you as though you lived the life of Christ. This is the greatness of the gospel.

Hell is reality, judgment is real, but salvation is offered freely to any who would receive it through faith.