A REVELATION FOR ATHIESTS

[Enoch2021]

On 4/11/2016 at 2:59 AM, siegi91 said:

HI Luftwaffe, excuse my intrusion, but I would really like to ask you a question. Other Christians may answer as well, of course.

You mentioned that Christians were confirmed correct by some recent scientific discoveries. You mentioned the Human Genome Project and Big Bang cosmology (I presume). 

My question is: are you really sure that the the Bible has been independently confirmed? I am not entering in the merit of whether a certain claim matches with what science found. It could very well be that there is perfect match, somewhere. My question concerns the methodolgy used by science to come to truth statements: do you trust the methodology used by science to come to certain conclusions about the world?

I am not a biologist and it is not my intention to trigger an evolution debate, but I think it is true that the most, if not all, people working at the HGP accept the reliability of scientific procedurers towards showing that evolution is true.

But I am a physicist, so I am interested in your views about the origin of the Universe. I have no clue whether you are a YEC or not, but let's suppose you are. 

In this case: how can you trust anything coming from a methodology that causes mistakes about the age of the Universe in the ballpark of six orders of magnitude?

 sieglinde

 

 

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....some recent scientific discoveries. You mentioned the Human Genome Project and Big Bang cosmology (I presume).

The big bang isn't Science, you have No Viable Independent Variables to even formulate a coherent Scientific Hypothesis let alone TEST anything; Ergo... it's a "Just So" Story.

The Information in DNA alone Validates Intelligent Agency (GOD).  CODE is only ever ever ever sourced by Intelligent Agency, without Exception !! 

 

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My question is: are you really sure that the the Bible has been independently confirmed?

Scripture resides in the Historical Documentation category.  It's the most reliable Historical Documentation of Antiquity by exponential magnitudes.

 

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 I am not entering in the merit of whether a certain claim matches with what science found

Science doesn't "find" anything; it's a Method of Inquiry:  The Scientific Method.

 

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I am not a biologist and it is not my intention to trigger an evolution debate, but I think it is true that the most, if not all, people working at the HGP accept the reliability of scientific procedurers towards showing that evolution is true.

1.   Argument to Popularity Fallacy.

2.  "evolution", what's that?  Please Define "evolution" ?  Then post the "Scientific Theory" of evolution....?

 

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But I am a physicist, so I am interested in your views about the origin of the Universe. I have no clue whether you are a YEC or not, but let's suppose you are. 

I am a Young Earth Creationist.  Views on the Origin of the Universe, Well...

According to the Schrodinger Equation THEN...Validated Repeatedly via thousands of "EXPERIMENTS" without Exception for the past 100 years with the most successful branch of Physics in the History of "Actual" Science, Quantum Mechanics... : 
Independent of Observation/Measurement... particles have no defined properties or location. They exist in a state of a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities rather than actual objects. That is, "Matter" doesn't exist as a Wave of Energy prior to observation but as a Wave of Potentialities.  

“The atoms or elementary particles themselves ARE NOT REAL; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts." --- Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics)

“The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable.”
Prof. Anton Zeilinger (Particle Physicist)

The act of a Conscious Observer/Measurement, collapses the Wave Function and creates the existence of physical objects and the properties they entail....INSTANTLY!! ...

"Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it." ---Pascual Jordan (Particle Physicist)

"The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."--- Bernard d'Espagnat (Particle Physicist)

Sir Rudolph Peierls PhD Nuclear Physics....

"The moment at which you can throw away one possibility and keep only the other is when you finally become conscience of the fact that the experiment has given one result... You see, the quantum mechanical description is in terms of knowledge, and knowledge requires SOMEBODY WHO KNOWS." {Emphasis Mine}The Ghost in the Atom, p. 73-74 

 

"The observer in quantum theory does more that just read the recordings. He also CHOOSES WHICH QUESTION will be put to nature: which aspect of nature his inquiry will probe. I call this important function of the observer the`The Heisenberg Choice', to contrast it with the `Dirac Choice', which is the random choice on the part of Nature that Dirac emphasized. 
According to quantum theory, the Dirac Choice is a choice between alternatives that are specified by the Heisenberg Choice: THE OBSERVER MUST FIRST specify what aspect of the system he intends to measure or probe, and then put in place an instrument that will probe that aspect. In quantum theory it is THE OBSERVER who Both poses the QUESTION, and RECOGNIZES THE ANSWER. Without some way of specifying WHAT THE QUESTION IS, the QUANTUM RULES will NOT WORK: the QUANTUM PROCESS GRINDS TO A HALT." {emphasis mine}
Stapp, H; Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics; 1999, p. 21

"Who deserves to trust their intuition more than Einstein; and Einstein's intuition told him, like everyone's intuition tells them, that things are really there when you're not looking at them. Well, he was Wrong! That intuition is Incorrect."
Seth Lloyd, Professor of Mechanical Engineering MIT

New Scientist "RealityCheck" 23 June 2007: "There is no objective reality beyond what we observe". Leggett's Inequality along with Bell's (again) have been violated. "Rather than passively observing it, WE IN FACT CREATE REALITY". {Emphasis Mine}
SEE: Landmark Parent Paper...
Gröblacher, S. et al; An experimental test of non-local realism Nature 446, 871-875 (19 April 2007) | doi :10.1038/nature05677. AND, 

Validated/CONFIRMED AGAIN (for the 1885th Time) here:  Hensen, B et al: Loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3 kilometres; Nature 526, 682–686 (29 October 2015) doi:10.1038/nature15759

"Quantum Theory thus denies the physically real world INDEPENDENT OF IT'S OBSERVATION". {Emphasis Mine}
Rosenblum B., Kuttner, F: The Quantum Enigma; Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 7

Ergo..."WHO" collapsed the Wave Function INITIALLY via Observation/"Knower" of the Path Information to CREATE REALITY... "Matter"?
Better still, WHO created "The Wave Function" so as to able to "COLLAPSE IT"....??

 
"REAL" Science hasn't disproved GOD....it has " REVEALED HIM ", and buried/IMPLODED Materialism/Realism.

 

Or you can roll with this buffoonery...

"In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it." ---
Martin Rees, Astrophysicist 

 

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In this case: how can you trust anything coming from a methodology that causes mistakes about the age of the Universe in the ballpark of six orders of magnitude?

Say what?

Any 5th Grade General Science Graduate knows Prima Facia, that ALL "DATING METHODS" are outside of the Scientific Method; Errr..." Sciences' " Purview, for goodness sakes.

You have NO....: "Independent Variable", so as to Form a Valid Scientific Hypothesis to TEST then VALIDATE your PREDICTION. Ahhh... "SCIENCE" !

1. So "Independent Variables" are the "Input" (The Cause) that is CHANGED "controlled by the scientist" so as to measure the "Output" (The Effect) "Dependent Variables"---Predictions.

2. And, Independent Variables are VITALLY Essential (indispensable, as it were) to Scientific Hypothesis construction, then Ipso Facto Experiments...So can you please elaborate: How on Earth can you CHANGE the "INPUT" and TEST your Prediction on a Past Event without a Time Machine, Pray Tell....?

You're in a simple Category Error. The Scientific Method is used to Validate "Cause and Effect" Relationships...it's Non Sequitur to use it to extrapolate "age".
It's tantamount to using a Framing Square to calculate the GNP of the Netherlands, for goodness sakes.  

So...

A Better Question: Given the Immutable Fact that it is OUTSIDE the Scientific Method and can never be VALIDATED, why on Earth are these "Long Ages" PUSHED ad nauseam, mainly by Pseudo-Scientists..."Then Stage 5 Clung" to and Blindly Parroted by the masses as Fact and all challengers ridiculed endlessly for even bringing the topic up, Pray Tell.... ??? 

Sounds like "Propaganda" to me, you? It's mind numbing.

Most Importantly (as discussed above), According to the Schrodinger Equation THEN...Validated Repeatedly via thousands of "EXPERIMENTS" without Exception for the past 100 years with the most successful branch of Physics in the History of "Actual" Science, Quantum Mechanics... : 

Independent of Observation/Measurement/"A Knower of the which-path information"... particles have no defined properties or location. They exist in a state of a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities rather than actual objects. That is, "Matter" doesn't exist as a Wave of Energy prior to observation but as a Wave of Potentialities.

So unless you can provide The Name of the person who Observed these Rocks (or whatever), Date and Time Stamped...

Can you please post the "Decay Rate", Tree Ring/Ice Core Deposition, Speed... for a Wave of Potentialities....?

 

regards

 

[LuftWaffle]

Hi Bonky,

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Right and I guess arguments for a creator aren't necessarily theistic at all.   What I mean about defining "god" I mean what qualifies as "god"?  Anything that was responsible for the creation of our Universe?  Could our Universe be caused by something and it wouldn't necessarily be a "god"?

No, the arguments are theistic, it would be a strange form of atheism that believes in a time-less, space-less, immaterial, personal, law giver and mind that created the universe.

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I find the mutliverse hypothesis to be on par with the one you offer, both take a leap of faith.

I would say they're not on par. The multiverse is an ad hoc explanation to explain away the incredible fine tuning of the universe. The God hypothesis is not ad hoc, it's been around long before the fine tuning was even discovered. It has explanatory power and scope to not only explain the fine tuning but many other things that appear to be beyond the reach of science, as I've mentioned before.

Lastly if you claim that atheists' beliefs are on par with Christian's "faith" then why do so many atheists disparage theists for being irrational, while atheism is presented as rational? Surely if you admit that atheism is just as faith based as theism then all atheism's intellectual pretences fly out the window?

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Early in our discussion you weren't satisfied with my stance that I'm not convinced but I'm open to the possibilities

I think you misunderstood me. I believe your stance, but I tried to point out that the "agnostic atheism" is a poor definition, because it's either a redundancy or a contradiction. I'm not trying to force a particular belief on you, just trying to show you why Christians have a reasonable issue with the way atheists nowadays define their terms.

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I'm not even suggesting that the Christian God is anything like that of the Muslims.  I'm saying that the same principles [defenses] that I hear from Christians about their God can be applied to any God.  

Ok, but so what? I have offered an argument for how it is at least in principle possible that there could be a moral justification for the judgement in the old testament. The particular claim that I addressed was that Christianity is inconsistent. Now if Islam is also consistent with its own claims, then what's the point? More than one religion can be internally consistent where punishment is concerned. Moreover I don't think Christian's complaint against Islam is inconsistent with their own claims, but that Islam is a false religion.

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Didn't God start things off in a garden with two people?  If God felt that he had to bring humanity back from a brutal way of life why would he let it get there to begin with?

I don't know, but I see no contradiction here. Sometimes when Gordon Ramsey goes to fix a restaurant in that show of his, he lets the owner hit rock bottom first before he begins to work with them. I believe it's to strip away any arrogance that the person might have. Have you ever watched "Kitchen Nightmares"? Maybe it's like that, but I don't know.

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Does it not make you wonder that the Israelites were only to be slaves for 7 years but non-jews were allowed to be enslaved indefinitely?  

Not at all, because the slavery that was regulated in the Bible isn't the sort of slavery that we're familiar with etc. It was a bond-servantship, and not the cruel dehumanising stuff that we think of  in terms of what the Roman's did to slaves or the American South. These permanent servant were from conquered nations, so if you unhappy that conquered nations were killed and you're unhappy that they were put to work, what should they have done? Make them full citizens?

But there are plenty of resources available on this, because it's a common rhetorical objection. 

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Which brings up another moment when defend the concept of hell, they defend a God who sounds pretty horrible to me.

I'm an annihilationist, so I have no disagreement that the concept of eternal torment sounds untenable. I have come to be convinced that the Bible doesn't teach eternal conscious torment, but I don't think I'm allowed to talk about that here. So instead, I'll give you a breakdown of where the essential difference lies.

Those supporting annihilationism (also called conditional immortality) take words like, "eternal life", "perish", "destruction" literally.
Those supporting eternal conscious torment take a figurative view, saying that everybody has immortiality but that "eternal life" is a qualitative statement about the quality of life, and "destruction", "perish" and so on are also qualitative.

My personal view on hell is that after judgement the wicked will be cast in fire and tortured for a finite period depending on their wickedness, and then death and hades will be thrown in the lake of fire and be utterly destroyed. Gone! Nada!

Only those who accepted Jesus' gift of grace will receive eternal life (immortality). This was the view that many early church fathers also had and I imagine that this is how Jesus' followers would have understood "eternal life", "destruction" and so on.

God bless, till next time.

[Enoch2021]

On 4/8/2016 at 9:22 AM, Bonky said:

 

I guess I consider myself an agnostic atheist and I'm not sure I quite qualify for the type of person your OP is referring to.  

 

By definition, Agnostic Atheist is an oxymoron; i.e., Married Bachelor...

Atheist: Disbelief in a deity/deities.

Agnostic: it's impossible to know for sure regarding the existence of a deity; lacks information.

So you disbelieve in GOD, but you just don't know for sure.   See the problem?

To remain logically consistent, it's either one or the other; NOT both.

 

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That being said, I've been around long enough to know that many many many Bible verses have been misused and/or quoted out of context by both believers and non-believers.  

Yep.

 

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I get the impression that many folks think "atheist" means someone who says there are no gods and they're sure of that.

Well yes, that's the Definition of an "A"-Theist.

 

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That definition may be true for a few but it's not the majority of non-believers, at least not in my experience.

They're living a contradiction then.

 

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How can we be sure about something that is not well defined, if exists is beyond our grasp etc?

Huh? 

HE is The CREATOR; Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent.  

Aristotle recognized HIM as The Prime Mover/Un-Caused Cause.  In cursory review of the literature in current times, the phrase is the "Ontological Primitive" ---that which everything can be explained in terms of, but itself can not be explained; it's indivisible.

 

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As a non-believer, I consider how many times in human history we have come across a mystery and we were so sure that there MUST be a supernatural explanation, only to find out later that we were wrong.  Why is it so impossible that we're not in the same boat right now with explaining our Universe?

Are you a "Non-Believer" or are you not sure?

You're making a positive claim of Non-Belief; So...what's your evidence in SUPPORT?  WHY....?

Remember, Belief without Evidence is the sine qua non of.... "Religion".

 

Who is WE?  Just because people in the past made conclusions based on ignorance doesn't Ipso Facto mean conclusions based on Knowledge are corrupted.

You only have 2 choices as to "How" we are here: Nature (Unguided) or Intelligent Design (GOD -Guided). The Laws of Physics, Chemistry/Biochemistry, Information; and the tenets of Specific Complexity, Irreducible Complexity, and Common Sense Rule Nature out...Laughingly so. If you summarily rule one of the choices out.... where does it leave you? 

Based on the Law of Non-Contradiction--- two things that are contradictory can't be responsible @ the same time (or do you disagree?).   This is not a False Dichotomy (Bifurcation Fallacy) because there is No THIRD CHOICE. Now if I summarily refute Nature (Unguided) the choice MUST BE ID. YOU MAY THEN conjure thousands of possibilities under ID; however, it has ZERO to do with the tenets of first postulate.

Here's The Case (in short)...

1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics:

 

1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant. (Nature/Natural Law CAN NOT create matter/energy)

2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, and the Universe is moving inexorably to "Maximum Entropy" or Heat Death.

If the total amount of mass-energy is constant, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe will end—the ‘heat death’ of the universe.

 

"It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning".

Alexander Vilenkin, "Many Worlds in One: The Search For Other Universes" (Hill & Wang, 2006), page 176

 

"How big was the original phase-space volume W that the Creator had to aim for in order to provide a universe compatible with the second law of thermodynamics and with what we now observe? ....
This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10¹²³."
Prof. Roger Penrose: The Emperor’s New Mind; p 343, 1989

 

Conclusion: There was a beginning, there was Creation.  Matter/Energy/Space can't create itself; ergo...GOD.

 

 

the Laws of Quantum Mechanics:

 

1) every double-slit experiment, 2) every delayed choice experiment, 3) every quantum eraser experiment, 4) every experiment that combines any of 1,2,3, show exactly the same results - if the which-path information is known or can be known, no interference; if the "which-path information" is not known or can't be known, there is interference.

 

No Interference = Matter Exists.

Interference = No Matter, "Wave-Like" behavior.

 

No Interference = "A Knower"...of the which-path Information.

 

Conclusion: To Create the Universe "Matter/Energy", there must have been "A Knower"....FIRST,  GOD.

 

 

Laws of Information.

 

Information is neither Matter/Energy; it's Semiotic.  Information is the sine qua non of "LIFE" and is ONLY ever ever ever sourced by Intelligent Agency, without Exception!!

All "Life" contains DNA.  A teaspoon of DNA contains enough information to stack a pile of books from here to the moon and back 500 times.

 

Conclusion: Intelligent Agency created "Life", GOD.

 

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My honest feeling is that there could be all kinds of bizarre explanations for why we're here.

There's ONLY 2 (Coherent) Explanations:  Nature (Unguided) or Intelligent Design (GOD -Guided).

 

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I acknowledge that a creator God could be one explanation, I just disagree that it's the only possible one. 

This is what I was talking about earlier "Logical Consistency".   How can a Creator GOD be a possible explanation for you, as an "A"-Theist?  It doesn't follow.

 

The only other 'plausible explanation' is Nature/Natural Law.  Of course, this is Falsified simply by the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.  It gets exponential magnitudes worse from there. 

 

regards

[Bonky]

Luftwaffle

You said

"No, the arguments are theistic, it would be a strange form of atheism that believes in a time-less, space-less, immaterial, personal, law giver and mind that created the universe."

Your arguments are theistic, is it not possible that the creator of our Universe does not care about the affairs of humans?  Isn't that what Dawkins was talking about when you quoted him?  You are forgetting the creator as deists define it.  

 

"I would say they're not on par. The multiverse is an ad hoc explanation to explain away the incredible fine tuning of the universe. The God hypothesis is not ad hoc, it's been around long before the fine tuning was even discovered. It has explanatory power and scope to not only explain the fine tuning but many other things that appear to be beyond the reach of science, as I've mentioned before.

Lastly if you claim that atheists' beliefs are on par with Christian's "faith" then why do so many atheists disparage theists for being irrational, while atheism is presented as rational? Surely if you admit that atheism is just as faith based as theism then all atheism's intellectual pretences fly out the window?"

I'm not aware that the multiverse hypothesis is an atheistic only view.  Secondly if anyone shows the same confidence in a multiverse as others show in their God concepts then I would criticize them accordingly.

 "I don't know, but I see no contradiction here. Sometimes when Gordon Ramsey goes to fix a restaurant in that show of his, he lets the owner hit rock bottom first before he begins to work with them. I believe it's to strip away any arrogance that the person might have. Have you ever watched "Kitchen Nightmares"? Maybe it's like that, but I don't know."

It strikes me as odd that God allowed for people to be stoned to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath but in other ways he had to take his time with is people slowly moving them toward a system of grace.

"Not at all, because the slavery that was regulated in the Bible isn't the sort of slavery that we're familiar with etc. It was a bond-servantship, and not the cruel dehumanising stuff that we think of  in terms of what the Roman's did to slaves or the American South. These permanent servant were from conquered nations, so if you unhappy that conquered nations were killed and you're unhappy that they were put to work, what should they have done? Make them full citizens?"

Ahhh, the slavery in the Bible was so different was it.  The slaves were treated so well they had to have a law that said you can't kill your slave by beating them to death.  Surely slaves were beating, but how much was too much was the question.  Are you so sure that slaves couldn't merely be purchased?  I'll bet you they were.  So are you telling me that owning another human as property is ok then?  Because here in the States you're not allowed to own someone EVEN IF you treat them well.  FREEDOM is a key concept here that you're missing.  I personally value freedom myself.  

I also reject this idea that the Israelites were not to treat each other so harshly but the same rule didn't apply to outsiders.   I guess I view everyone, no matter what their skin color, nationality, background, origin as people worthy of respect and good treatment.   I don't doubt that there were slaves that loved their "master", but the idea that they all sat around a campfire singing songs at night is just fantasy.

[LuftWaffle]

Hi Bonky,

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Your arguments are theistic, is it not possible that the creator of our Universe does not care about the affairs of humans?

I haven't actually forgotten about deists. In fact I've often said that even a deist can run these arguments, precisely when atheists start to object to the fact that these arguments don't prove Christianity. It puzzles me though, how atheists can think that if a single argument doesn't lead all the way to Christianity, that they needn't consider its conclusion.

Some of the arguments such as the Cosmological argument and the Teleological argument could be run by deists as well. So how does that help atheism?

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I'm not aware that the multiverse hypothesis is an atheistic only view.  Secondly if anyone shows the same confidence in a multiverse as others show in their God concepts then I would criticize them accordingly.

Really? So, show me where you've criticised Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carrol and Stephen Hawking recently... I would love to see your forum posts against their certainty.
The multiverse theory, it's a materialistic explanation for the fine tuning, which is why atheists almost without fail, reach for it when confronted with the question of the universe appearing finely tuned for life.

But you've ignored a very important point I've made in this regard, which is, if atheists' claims of multiverses are on par with Christian's claims about God, then what does it do for atheists' claim that atheism is supposedly rational?

If rational people only believe what the evidence shows, then what is your rational objection to the fine tuning of the universe? So instead of merely imagining an explanation for it, what does the evidence currently show us in that regard?

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It strikes me as odd that God allowed for people to be stoned to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath but in other ways he had to take his time with is people slowly moving them toward a system of grace.

I'm not sure what your point is? Is there some logical contradiction between God being strict regarding the sabbath the Torah and what I said about the Law being an imperfect system leading to a perfect system of grace?
Or are you now just running through lists of what seems to be bizarre laws for rhetorical effect?

If the latter is the case, which I think it is, because you're not even acknowledging any answers I give anymore, you just jump straight from question to question while totally ignoring the moral implications of atheism.

Let me address the issue of bizarre laws and punishments. Israel was to be different from other nations. God didn't want customs from the surrounding ANE nations to influence Israel in anyway, which is why the punishments for disobeying the laws are far stricter than seems reasonable to us. You'll find penalties for smuggling drugs into an airport in Australia are far stricter than say Nigeria, because Australia is more serious about dealing with the problem, and/or Australia has greater numbers of attempts at smuggling into their borders than another country. Penalties generally change over time and are typically meant to deal with some issue. They have no bearing on moral ontology, though.

Laws have a cultural context, which when viewed outside the context may seem bizzare. Imagine an archaeologist a thousand years from finding a Christian rule saying that it's wrong to read sports magazines in February. To him this would seem bizarre and arbitrary, because there's no obvious moral connection, but in our cultural context we know that that's when the Sports illustrated swimsuit issue comes out.

Sabbath laws were in place so that everybody could have a day of rest, a day of not thinking about making money but instead reflecting about God's providence. A day to give the oxen a rest, for the slaves to rest and for the wheels to stop turning.
If you've going to raise issues about the sabbath then you're not doing yourself any favours by picking troublesome versus from evilbible.com without also reading what Jesus had to say about the sabbath. God enforced the sabbath strictly so that people would not violate this for personal gain and greed.

So, you could take the Bill Maher/EvilBible.com approach and say, "God says to kill people for picking up sticks on Saturdays". Ridiculous! This is fine if just want to insulate yourself from being persuaded otherwise or you really just want to dismiss Christianity without too much effort.
Alternatively you can apply the principle of charity and take a more well-informed and scholarly approach to the Bible. Where you look at all the Biblical statements around a particular topic, not just select ones. And then you consider the matter in the context of Christian theology as a whole, in the context of how Jewish case law was read and interpreted, the cultural context in Israel at the time as well as the Ancient Near Eastern context in general. Those who have done this generally come to different conclusions about the Old Testament laws.

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Ahhh, the slavery in the Bible was so different was it.  The slaves were treated so well they had to have a law that said you can't kill your slave by beating them to death.

I don't think I follow your reasoning here, Bonky. In many companies assaulting a fellow employee will result in legal action being taken. Does the existence of the legal rule somehow imply that people are punching each other in offices all the time?
Isn't the point of the law to actually prevent things? So if you were a slave in Egypt at the time who heard about this law would the logical conclusion be, "Hey, they must be treating their slaves real bad there if they need a law telling to not beat their slaves. Better to stay here in Egypt where there is no such law"?

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Are you so sure that slaves couldn't merely be purchased?

Jacob laboured as a slave for many years for Laban so that he could marry his daughter.
Slavery was also a way to work off debts so families wouldn't be left without land.
Foreigners were allowed to work as slaves if their country was in famine and so on. Foreign slaves however would need to remain slaves till the year of jubilee. The commitment is greater so that foreigners don't abuse this as way easy get out of debt mechanism. If they became Jews, however they'd be subject to Jewish law.

Slavery was contractual, much like any typical employment contract we have today and the Bible has rules governing it.

The Bible expressly forbade kidnapping people and selling them as slaves (Exodus 21:16), which is what happened in the American South and in Rome and Egypt and so on. So yeah, very different.

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So are you telling me that owning another human as property is ok then?

Slaves were seen as property from an economic perspective, this does not mean they were seen as mere property. Sports contracts work the same way. If a Formula 1 driver engages in a contract with the McLaren F1 team, they are seen as property of the team from a contractual asset perspective. The driver is ranked among assets like the cars and the technology and the team even has a say with regard to the assets conduct in public, but this does not mean that F1 drivers are dehumanised and treated like mere objects.

In the in the Bible the law says that if a slave liked working for his master and wished to remain a slave (surely by your logic this must mean slaves were treated exceptionally well) the slave could get an earring showing allegiance to their master, and they'd be permanently bonded to that master. Deut 15:17
So if the slaves wished to extend the contract indefinitely, the master and the slave would agree to it and the slave would get an earring thereby sealing the contract.

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FREEDOM is a key concept here that you're missing.  I personally value freedom myself.  

I also value freedom, so lets talk about how do you define freedom, and how free will works within atheism, shall we?
If the universe is entirely materialistic, which is to say consisting only of space, time, matter and energy, then all our actions are determined by the laws governing space, time, matter and energy. Physics in other words. If all our actions are governed by physics, then freedom is an illusion, not so? It merely "feels" to us like we're the originators of our own actions but actually we're not. We're marionettes, right?

Conversly in the Christian worldview God made man in His image and imbued man with agency. With free will and thus, the ability to act accordance with one's own volition. This is why we hold people responsible for their actions, whether good or bad because we believe that people are the originators of their own actions. When people are in a position where they cannot do otherwise, then that mitigates accountability, such events, we call accidents because the person couldn't help it. On atheism all human actions are accidental because they're all determined and the person could not have done otherwise.

What are your thoughts on this?

Incidentally this was one of the problems with Shelly Kagan's position as well in the debate with WLC that you mentioned. He's a moral objectivist who wishes to ground helping and not hurting in the decisions of an imagined rationally perfect being, but this assumes that rational decisions are possible in the first place. Bill Craig's question about determinism was spot on, and unfortunately Kagan brushed it aside with a quick reference to Compatibilism (a thoroughly deterministic view) and " It's too complicated to discuss in the debate".

I'm still waiting for you to let me know what your stance on morality is, by the way. Do you believe moral 'oughts' are objectively true, or are they simply individual or cultural conventions subjectively based? With all your references to the old testament one would think that unlike most atheists you're a moral objectivist, but what is your grounding for morality? Do you believe like Kagan that morality can be grounding in what one imagines a perfectly rational being's decisions would be like? By the way, how is that different from a kind of "what would Jesus do ethic?"

Anyway, I digress.

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I guess I view everyone, no matter what their skin color, nationality, background, origin as people worthy of respect and good treatment.

So you believe that the United States should make absolutely no distinction between US Citizens and foreigners on a travel or work visa? If that is the case, let me know and I'll go and live and work there because my country sucks right now.
Do you also believe that the United States should make no distinction between US Citizens and war criminals, enemy soldiers etc.?
Are you pro-life?

What is the basis for your belief that all people are to be treated with respect? Does evolution inform this belief? Does physics or chemistry? Does naturalism in any way inform that belief? I think nature has been accurately described as being red in tooth and claw, but respect and good treatment, not so much.
So what is your naturalistic, empirical case for good treatment and mutual respect regardless of background, colour, origin, nationality and so-on?

Christianity claims that all people are created in the image of God, that all people are valuable and that even the hairs on our heads are counted. It is with this in mind that Wilberforce and Martin Luther King campaigned against slavery. It is with this in mind that the American constitution declared unalienable rights as endowed by the Creator.

But sure, I'm a bit of a geek, so I'll hear your empirical case for human equality.

 

[Bonky]

Luftwaffle, I'm good for one more post but I've got so much going on right now.  I'll try to address what I can with the time I have. 

 

You said

"Really? So, show me where you've criticised Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carrol and Stephen Hawking recently... I would love to see your forum posts against their certainty.
The multiverse theory, it's a materialistic explanation for the fine tuning, which is why atheists almost without fail, reach for it when confronted with the question of the universe appearing finely tuned for life.

But you've ignored a very important point I've made in this regard, which is, if atheists' claims of multiverses are on par with Christian's claims about God, then what does it do for atheists' claim that atheism is supposedly rational?

If rational people only believe what the evidence shows, then what is your rational objection to the fine tuning of the universe? So instead of merely imagining an explanation for it, what does the evidence currently show us in that regard?"

I'm not aware that the scientists you mention are confident in a multiverse, or if so, to what degree.   If they are then I publicly criticize them for being too confident.  I will bet you that Krauss doesn't have the same confidence in a multiverse that a theist has in their God concept.  I've heard quite a few lectures from Krauss and I don't remember him pushing a multiverse theory often.  It's just an idea, just like Gods are.

"I'm not sure what your point is? Is there some logical contradiction between God being strict regarding the sabbath the Torah and what I said about the Law being an imperfect system leading to a perfect system of grace?
Or are you now just running through lists of what seems to be bizarre laws for rhetorical effect?"

You made it sound like God had to ease us into his new perfect system.  I tried to show you that he didn't feel the need to ease other things so your intended point didn't float well.  It just seems like such a sloppy mess fooling around with lost Jews in a desert to finally get to what he wanted in the first place.   Why not just get to the point from the beginning?  

"I don't think I follow your reasoning here, Bonky. In many companies assaulting a fellow employee will result in legal action being taken. Does the existence of the legal rule somehow imply that people are punching each other in offices all the time?
Isn't the point of the law to actually prevent things? So if you were a slave in Egypt at the time who heard about this law would the logical conclusion be, "Hey, they must be treating their slaves real bad there if they need a law telling to not beat their slaves. Better to stay here in Egypt where there is no such law?"

That's fine, but let's not pretend that things were so swell back then.  Remember these are the same people that, under certain guidance killed children and then took their sisters as wives.  I'm sure they were capable of mistreating their slaves as well.   It's not like it was Leave it to Beaver 2000 BC.  

"In the in the Bible the law says that if a slave liked working for his master and wished to remain a slave (surely by your logic this must mean slaves were treated exceptionally well) the slave could get an earring showing allegiance to their master, and they'd be permanently bonded to that master. Deut 15:17
So if the slaves wished to extend the contract indefinitely, the master and the slave would agree to it and the slave would get an earring thereby sealing the contract."

Do you think these same rules apply for slaves that aren't Israelites?  I wouldn't begin to suggest that all slave relationships were bad.  I'm sure there were wonderful slave masters that treated their people well.   Isn't one of the reasons why we don't allow slavery in developed nations is because of the propensity for abuse and mistreatment?   Why would we think the Iraelites were somehow immune to this?  These were the same people who would turn their back on God at almost every turn remember?

"Conversly in the Christian worldview God made man in His image and imbued man with agency. With free will and thus, the ability to act accordance with one's own volition. This is why we hold people responsible for their actions, whether good or bad because we believe that people are the originators of their own actions. When people are in a position where they cannot do otherwise, then that mitigates accountability, such events, we call accidents because the person couldn't help it. On atheism all human actions are accidental because they're all determined and the person could not have done otherwise.

What are your thoughts on this?"

As stated before I'm no expert on morality or free will but I can give you my thoughts on the matter.   I don't equate freedom with free will by the way, they are two different things are they not?  Anyway,  I would think we don't have perfect free will because we have cultural biases we may or may not adopt, we have prejudices etc.   

Regarding God making man in his image, I personally believe that is 100% the other way around.  Take a note of the people who talk about their God and also pay attention to who THEY are.   You'll see the "God" they speak of is the same person they see in the mirror.   We all live in and obey the physical laws of nature, but I don't see why everything is deterministic.  We're not chairs, we are able to assess our environment and consider our actions.  

"I'm still waiting for you to let me know what your stance on morality is, by the way. Do you believe moral 'oughts' are objectively true, or are they simply individual or cultural conventions subjectively based? With all your references to the old testament one would think that unlike most atheists you're a moral objectivist, but what is your grounding for morality? Do you believe like Kagan that morality can be grounding in what one imagines a perfectly rational being's decisions would be like? By the way, how is that different from a kind of "what would Jesus do ethic?"

I don't need to judge the old testament by my standards, heck I can do that with the much advertised Christian morality that is all around me.  By their own standards God wasn't always rational nor did he seem to hold the same values.   I don't believe in any ultimate morality.   We could all live in complete anarchy killing each other and so forth but it seems to me that working together and choosing to live peacefully has significant benefits.  

In the US for the past several decades we've been imprisoning people for smoking pot.  Now the tide is changing, people are and have been upset that our government would imprison people over something so silly.   What would you blame this shift on?  God?  Or people considering the consequence of putting people in jail over something rather benign?   Who told us to stop allowing slavery?  That was US.  WE decided that.  So no I don't have a stamp of approval from a supreme being, but then I don't think you do either.  

[LuftWaffle]

Hi Bonky,

I'm also chasing a deadline so my time has also been rather limited as of late. So I'll limit my response to two salient points.

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I will bet you that Krauss doesn't have the same confidence in a multiverse that a theist has in their God concept.

So basically you're changing your argument to saying that Krauss' confidence is within an acceptable range of confidence and Christians' confidence is not within the acceptable range? Who, may I ask, is the arbiter of this range? You?

I have mentioned people like Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking in particular, and while you can simply deny this, I think books like "A Universe from Nothing" and "The Grand Design" are laden with conjecture presented as fact, not to mention statements that are philosophically ignorant yet matter-of-factly stated.

In terms of your irritation at certainty in Christianity. Firstly I have pointed out that there is a difference between knowing and showing. Just because a Christian isn't able to convince a hardline atheist of the truth of their convictions does not mean they cannot have some degree of certainty in their convictions over and above the philosophical arguments that I have presented for the existence of God.

Alvin Plantinga has made a case for a reformed epistomology that argues that belief in God is properly basic, like the belief that history really happened, or that there is a reality outside the mind. These realities cannot be proven but are considered true in a properly basic way. Plantinga argues that the conscious mind, when functioning properly, and when not being actively suppressed, knows there is a God. In such cases the Christian is perfectly warranted to believe in God even when they can't present the kind of evidence that'll convince every atheist.

Another argument might be from personal experience, such as that I have offered. Those who can testify to a personal experience of God in their lives, can be certain of the existence of God, while obviously not being able to prove it to a hardline atheist. Now you could ask, "How do you know you're not mistaken?" and the Christian can simply echo the question back to the atheist, "How do YOU know YOU're not mistaken either?" Anybody can be mistaken about anything, so asking that question is really pretty useless in the absence of a case against the claim.

So in the end, it seems to me that you'd have to be certain that not a single Christian has any warrant for belief in God, only then can your campaign against Christian certainty have any meaning.
But if you're certain that they cannot be certain even though you cannot be certain what warrants their beliefs, then aren't you being the thing you're arguing against? That's why arguing against certainty is almost always self-defeating. This also undermines the oft claimed humility of those opposed to certainty, because they're imposing their uncertainty upon others while being ignorant of that which might warrant certainty in the believer in the first place.

"I'm certain that certainty is a bad thing"

Now, you could say that this makes Christianity subjective, and I would agree if the entire Christian case built on mere personal experience, but I think the many philosophical arguments for God make the existence of God more likely than not.

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I don't need to judge the old testament by my standards, heck I can do that with the much advertised Christian morality that is all around me.

In the absence of an objective atheistic standard of morality all you're left with is trying to use Christianity's morality against itself, and I have already addressed this. The argument that Christian morality isn't consistent is defeated fairly easily by simply showing the possibility of a moral justification for an apparently immoral act/command. This is straightforward "greater-good" reasoning. Your point therefore has no logical force, it's simply rhetorically effective.

So while you've been straining at the gnat of cherry picked Old Testament verses, you've missed the camel, namely: atheism when taken to it's logical conclusion leads to moral nihilism, which means atheists have to choose between being moral or being rational but not both because they cannot rationally ground morality. The overwhelming majority of atheists agree with this.

I'll leave it at that. You're welcome to have the last word if you wish. I've enjoyed the conversation immensely and I hope you did too.

God bless

[Goldenshark]

Just to start up the convo again, there is such thing as an atheist because I am one, but it really depends on what gods you are talking about. I presume that most of you here are atheists about most of the gods humanity has believed in like Zeus, but some of us just go one god further.

[missmuffet]

2 minutes ago, Goldenshark said:

Just to start up the convo again, there is such thing as an atheist because I am one, but it really depends on what gods you are talking about. I presume that most of you here are atheists about most of the gods humanity has believed in like Zeus, but some of us just go one god further.

Do you even hope that you are right? If you are not you have a nightmare of an eternity before you.

[MorningGlory]

1 hour ago, Goldenshark said:

Just to start up the convo again, there is such thing as an atheist because I am one, but it really depends on what gods you are talking about. I presume that most of you here are atheists about most of the gods humanity has believed in like Zeus, but some of us just go one god further.

You are equating 'gods' as in mythology and God who is the creator.  Apples and oranges, shark.