Fallen and Flawed

Christ will one day be the judge–rewarding the good and punishing the wicked.

 
That’s not what I was taught as a christian. I was taught that Jesus will judge people by whether they have “accepted” him or not. Rewarding those who believe in him and punishing those who do not. Being save and being righteous does not neccessarily mean the same thing.

I have other issues with this article, but I am at work, ATM. So, I’ll comment on those later.

Demian,

First, you said this:

“Righteousness means purity of heart, just, agreeable to the law. Used in Scripture and theology, it’s nearly equivalent to holiness. Righteousness includes all we call justice, honesty and virtue.”

So you’ve identified justice, honesty, and virtue as components of righteousness. You claim that God is the ultimate standard for righteousness, so are you claiming that God is the ultimate standard for justice, honesty, and virtue? I just want to make sure that I know where you’re going, because if this is what you’re claiming, I have a question about the following section.

“The first thing to know about God’s righteousness is that he’s the ultimate standard for righteousness. God’s righteousness comes from within his self-existent being. It’s the reason he is exalted above us.

That’s why his laws, ordinances and decrees are righteous: whatever comes out of his mouth is holy and just.”

So, if God is the ultimate standard for righteousness, (which includes justice, honesty, and virtue), and if God’s righteousness comes from within his self-existent being, and whatever comes out of his mouth is holy and just…then anything that comes out of God’s mouth is holy and just. Then anything God does should exemplify justice, honesty, and virtue.

But how do you define these qualities? If what you’re saying is true, God could literally do *anything* and you could successfully claim that it is just, honest, and virtuous.

You claim that God does no injustice, and that anything we consider good conforms to God. Then are slavery and genocide good because God does them? Are they good because they conform to God? Then why should we punish war criminals like Joseph Kony or Slobodan Milosevic? Then why should slavery be illegal?

I do not believe that this is a firm foundation for morality. There is nothing that grounds God’s nature as honest, just or righteous. God can do whatever he wants, because anything he does is righteousness. Thus, you are able to dismiss all claims against God’s character. But what if God told you to do something that you believe to be wrong? What if you believed that God told you to kill me? According to your moral system, I dare say it could be construed as righteousness.

This is what I see as the danger of faith: if you’ll believe without evidence, you’ll believe many more unsupported and dangerous claims than you would if you only accepted claims based on evidence.

“Calvin says in the threats we see God’s spotless purity. In the promises, his infinite love of righteousness. Charnock says in the threats “his irreversible justice manifested that all those that commit sin are worthy of death.” In the promises, “his purity did sparkle.””

When a husband threatens his wife, we don’t see spotless purity. We call it abuse.

Again, according to your moral system, God can do anything and it is righteousness. God can threaten and condemn us for any reason deemed necessary.

People make mistakes. If there is a God, then He created us this way, and if your God exists, then He always knew that we make mistakes. So are we really worthy of death? Are we really 100% worthless and depraved? No, I don’t believe that, and I reject it.

Christianity (at least your version of it) teaches us that we are inherently depraved. It teaches us that we earn this abuse, like a husband tells his wife that she earned abuse. It’s sickening. Yes, we make mistakes, and sometimes do horrendous things. But we also do a lot of good in the world.

Christians tell me that I am missing out on the world because I don’t have their religion…but if they only see the evil in humanity and not the good, then I am not the one who is truly missing something, am I?

“Without God’s righteousness we wouldn’t even understand what evil is.”

So in a world without a God’s active intervention, we wouldn’t have developed the intuition that it is wrong to kill?

Thousands of years ago, most people seem to have been okay with the mass slaughter of civilians in war. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, we still have to bear this tragedy. However, more people are disgusted with the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, and it is far less socially acceptable. Also, the list of offenses which have earned capital punishment has declined from Hammurabi’s code to the British penal system to modern-day America. Our view of killing and murder has evolved.

Are you saying that we wouldn’t know it was tragic to lose human life without divine intervention? Or are you saying that we wouldn’t value human life without a God?

Well, enough tragic things seem to occur to say that you’re right that we don’t place a high enough value on human life, though most of us seem to largely agree on a few common parameters of morality.

Humans have made enough mistakes to establish that our moral intuitions had to be refined, and are constantly being refined; yet we have also made enough mistakes to refine our moral intuitions to some length.

I think we do understand “evil” in our own terms, with or without the intervention of a God in human affairs. If there is a God, then I don’t believe that we understand what “evil” is, because according to your definitions, God can commit any number of acts which most of us would label as “evil”, and they would still be considered ultimate righteousness.

“Retribution means that God will see that each person sooner or later receives what he deserves–if not here, then hereafter. That is righteousness–not vindication.

Therefore, anger is an appropriate reaction to wickedness. Would a God who did not react adversely to evil in his world be morally perfect? God is not God when he does not punish sin.”

This seems all well and good, except that you still have no coherent standard for justice. How do we know that God knows exactly what people deserve? Again, God can do anything and it is righteousness according to your definitions. Eternal torment or annihilation for a century of transgressions? What is our standard – for you, the one God does is moral – but you have no way to really know which choice is more moral unless God does it.

“And what can’t be missed here is that goodness without justice is evil. God spares us because he is good, but he could not be good if he were not just. He punishes the wicked because they deserve it. He spares the wicked only because he is good. Thus, he is free from every ounce of corruption.”

But what is justice, Demian? You don’t have a definition, you only have what God does. So God can do anything, and that counts as justice. Of course your God is free from corruption if you use that model.

Your model is incapable of forming an opinion on the actions of anyone — if goodness is my essential nature, then anything I do is good — but it’s good according to what? My nature? Then why is my nature good?

Is my nature good because of the things I do? Then why are the things I do “good”? Are they good because I do them, or do I do them because they are good? If they’re good because I do them, and I am the God of the Bible, then genocide and slavery are good. If I do them because they are good, then I do “good” acts because of a standard outside of myself, and what standard is outside of God, according to your definitions?

You have no standard for “good”, “corruption”, “justice”, “honesty”, or “virtue”. God deceives in the Bible, God hardens hearts in the Bible, God leads tribes to genocide and condones slavery in the Bible. Are these things “good”, “just”, “honest”, or “virtuous”?

How does any of this square with God being loving or even kind, let alone forgiving?

Any vindictive, insecure tyrant can uphold these standards of “justice” if you care nothing about the quality of the laws and only about their enforcement. After all, there’s no emotion or compassion to preventing them from inflicting the harshest punishments for every slight infraction of the law. This may appeal to Calvinists who happily accept that the vast majority are condemned to punishment and can do nothing to change this, but it’s hard to see why this is a good thing.

OK, I had a few things forming in my head as I read this, but when I got to the comments I realised I had well and truly been beaten to it during my sleep

Robert Madewell, you said,

I was taught that Jesus will judge people by whether they have “accepted” him or not.

What you were taught was “Christianity Lite.” Like other “lite” products, it comes packaged similarly to the real deal, but when you open it up you find it lacks the full-bodied essence of what it is designed to pass for and is far less satisfying. I’m not trying to be cute– there is a false gospel abounding in christendom which passes itself off as Christianity, but focuses on the believer’s experience and benefit rather than on the worship of God and Christ.

I feel for you because I know that there is far more street credibility for an atheist who says he left Christianity than for one who can only say that he once thought he was a Christian. But you may be nearer the kingdom of God and better off because of where you have, and haven’t been.

Teleprompter, we’ve been over the basics before, but for the sake of those just tuning in, the bottom line is that unless you have been born again by the ministration of the Holy Spirit you can’t see the kingdom of God. Therefore, all these issues you seek to address are incomprehensible to you. God and His unerring and immutable Word compose the fundamental presupposition of Christian faith. Asking a disciple of Jesus Christ to define Christian terminology and phraseology to unbelievers is akin to placing an advanced calculus textbook before a farm animal and expecting it to learn. The analogy is not meant to offend, because every believer in Christ was once first His enemy and as low on the scale of righteousness as anyone could be. We did not “get” or make ourselves better. Christ saved us by the process of propitiation explained briefly above.

No real Christian constructs a “model” by which to convince unbelievers to believe. That is the method of unregenerate men, but not the way of God. God has chosen that through the foolishness of preaching Christ crucified those who will believe shall be saved.

Tyro, you stated,

This may appeal to Calvinists who happily accept that the vast majority are condemned to punishment and can do nothing to change this, but it’s hard to see why this is a good thing.

…which raises these points:
1. People’s individual standing before God is not affected by what does or doesn’t appeal to us.
2. Christians do accept whatever God has established, but not always happily (at least not at first, until we begin to understand His purposes). And neither God nor we are pleased that the majority choose to neglect the great salvation offered to them.
3. It is not that they “can do nothing to change this,” but that they choose to refuse God’s mercy and generosity in order to continue is their sinfulness. (Romans 1:18)
4. As I explained to Teleprompter, above, when you have been born again from above you will begin to understand this.

James, see Psalm 127:2. I hope you awakened refreshed.

al,

1. People’s individual standing before God is not affected by what does or doesn’t appeal to us.

If God punishes the good and saves the bad or evil, then you’re right, there’s little we can do about it. But what we can do is stop making apologies for this God, stop calling him “good” or “loving” or even “just”.

It is not that they “can do nothing to change this,” but that they choose to refuse God’s mercy and generosity in order to continue is their sinfulness. (Romans 1:18)

Based on my own experience and the huge population of non-Christians (distributed by geographies) says to me that you’re wrong. Quoting the bible doesn’t make you any more correct, it just makes the bible equally wrong.

when you have been born again from above you will begin to understand this.

I have reason and the ability to evaluate evidence now. Being “born again” seems to just bring a commitment to a fixed conclusion. If this is the only path to understanding, I think you’re again undermining your argument.

It’s like hearing that the only way to understand how astrology works is to start with a fixed, unshakable faith in astrology. You’d treat that with the same derision I think your argument is worth.

al,

“Teleprompter, we’ve been over the basics before, but for the sake of those just tuning in, the bottom line is that unless you have been born again by the ministration of the Holy Spirit you can’t see the kingdom of God.”

…unless you have been enlightened by His Holiness Lord Krishna, you can’t see the true Nature of God.

…unless you open your eyes to the Truth of the Book of Mormon, you can’t objectively evaluate the message of Joseph Smith.

…unless you are open and honest to the Qur’an, you will fail to understand the workings of Allah.

Do you understand where I’m going with this analogy? According to your logic, *you cannot truly understand* any of these religions, and yet you embrace Christianity alone.

Of course, if I am correct, then you don’t need to fully embrace a religion before you accept or reject its claims.

“Therefore, all these issues you seek to address are incomprehensible to you. God and His unerring and immutable Word compose the fundamental presupposition of Christian faith.”

How do you know that the Bible is unerring and immutable? Just because you want it to be that way? If you don’t want to consider any other alternatives, I’m not going to judge you for it. But when you say so confidently that you understand God’s message, again and again, then I would expect there to be at least some reason you believe it.

Let’s look at supposed prophecies of Jesus from the old testament and see if they are fulfilled. Let’s look at the natural world and see if it is designed. Let’s look at philosophy and see if it implies the existence of a Creator. I am not afraid of being wrong about the existence of a God.

If you don’t want to consider any other alternatives – fine, I won’t judge you for it. But you simply can’t imply that non-believers are close-minded because we’re not open to new perspectives if that is the attitude you choose.

“Asking a disciple of Jesus Christ to define Christian terminology and phraseology to unbelievers is akin to placing an advanced calculus textbook before a farm animal and expecting it to learn. The analogy is not meant to offend, because every believer in Christ was once first His enemy and as low on the scale of righteousness as anyone could be. We did not “get” or make ourselves better. Christ saved us by the process of propitiation explained briefly above.”

Asking any group of Christians to consistently define Christian phraseology and terminology is enough of a challenge, then? If Christians can’t learn it, and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Sikhs and Buddhists can’t learn it, and atheists and agnostics can’t learn it, then what is the point?

Would a loving God who wants us to be saved expend so much effort to obstruct Truth from us?

I’m assuming that you believe that God can do anything, but I believe that this is a serious question.

Also, if God’s word is apparently “immutable”, then why it is so difficult to understand and why it is so open to varying interpretations?

“No real Christian constructs a “model” by which to convince unbelievers to believe. That is the method of unregenerate men, but not the way of God. God has chosen that through the foolishness of preaching Christ crucified those who will believe shall be saved.”

You have repeatedly asserted quite confidently on this blog, the same message, over and over again. Yes, I understand what is important to you. But I don’t understand why it is important to you.

How do you know about God? Because of the Bible. How do you know about the Bible? Because of God.

It’s a perfect circle of logic; I can’t penetrate it anywhere. This is what tempts me to just throw my hands up in the air and quit trying to understand religion.

Tyro and Teleprompter, because you seem to understand each other and to engage me similarly, I will answer you together. If I am mistaken in this assessment, please forgive me and let me know…

You both continue to prove my point that unless you have been born again you cannot comprehend God and/or His ways. I understand your objections to this analysis, your illustrations of its supposed wrongness, your comparisons of its claims to those of other belief systems, because I once held and used the same arguments as you do now.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25)

By requiring God to submit Himself to my reason, logic, values, evaluation, acceptance, I would place Him lower than myself, making Him answerable to me. This is precisely the manifest nature of “fallen and flawed” humanity. Please read Romans 1:18-25 for a detailed explanation of this procession of spiritual decline from suppressing the knowledge of the Creator God down to the practicing of worship toward His created beings, typified by oneself.

I appreciate your dislike of my returning again and again to the Bible, but it is all I have. The spiritual supercedes the natural on every level. There is no way to explain God even in spiritual terms, much less to even introduce Him in nonspiritual terms. When identifying Himself to Moses after having prepared him for decades, God Himself simply established Himself as I AM</strong.

Of course, if I am correct, then you don’t need to fully embrace a religion before you accept or reject its claims.

You are entirely correct. I know you dislike my saying so, but God allows you that latitude. Sorry, but that’s how it is.

you simply can’t imply that non-believers are close-minded because we’re not open to new perspectives…

Almost correct. Actually, I CAN imply that, BUT I don’t. It is, once again, that awful Bible that declares (rather than merely implying), NOT that you are closed-minded, but that you are dead, blind, and deaf because of sin. So it is not the closedness of your mind, but its being DEAD that prevents your seeing the light. I only offer the explanation, but I do not argue for it, because how am I to communicate truth to dead people. Only the Holy Spirit, being God, can make the dead live.

You have repeatedly asserted quite confidently on this blog… But I don’t understand why it is important to you.

I am as confident as I know how to be, but I readily confess that I often doubt. I am a weak man. But when I consider all the alternatives, I find nothing nearly as convincing or reliable as the Bible in which to place my trust.
It is important to me because it is my Lord’s desire, and my life depends upon it.
It is important for me to tell about it because my Lord has commissioned me to do so.
It is NOT important to me to convince anyone else because that is impossible, its being God’s chosen work to do and not assigned to me.
It is important to YOU because YOUR life depends upon it. And, believe it or not, that matters to me.

Thanks for exercising what I think must be extreme self control in not lashing out at me for my apparently incredible stupidity…

…almost forgot:

It’s a perfect circle of logic; I can’t penetrate it anywhere.

Bingo! It certainly is circular logic. I believe in God as the Bible explains Him because He tells me in the Bible that it is true.

This is what tempts me to just throw my hands up in the air and quit trying to understand religion.

Double Bingo! This, I think, would be the best decision you could make. You don’t need to understand religion– you need to meet God, and the way to meet Him is decidedly NOT by trying to understand religion.

al,

“By requiring God to submit Himself to my reason, logic, values, evaluation, acceptance, I would place Him lower than myself, making Him answerable to me.”

And what is wrong with that? Are parents not responsible in some way for their offspring? Is an architect not responsible for her building? Is a farmer not responsible for her field?

What if reason, logic, values, evaluation, and acceptance are creations of your God? If we have those things, and your God created it all, then we have been given them, and been given them to use. Or why else would we have them?

Surely God would not oppose our uses of reason and logic to build the infrastructure of the 21st century? Would God oppose Kepler, Newton, or Einstein?

Why shouldn’t a God be answerable to us? What’s wrong with that? Is God supposed to be some kind of negligent or abusive parent? I mean, you don’t have to give your kids candy when they’re throwing a tantrum, but it would be nice if you were there once in a while.

There’s a difference between consistent discipline, and say, I think I’ll let all those human kids figure it out on their own while they have a few hundred years of religion-based genocide followed by a few hundred years of intra-religion conflicts in my name.

I’m not asking for God to give a Ferrari or to make my troubles go away entirely. I just want to know if anyone’s there.

“It is, once again, that awful Bible that declares (rather than merely implying), NOT that you are closed-minded, but that you are dead, blind, and deaf because of sin. So it is not the closedness of your mind, but its being DEAD that prevents your seeing the light.”

So I am dead, blind, and deaf? So since I am dead, blind, and deaf to God, who according to you and Demian is the exemplification of all honesty and virtue, then it should be impossible for me to do anything that is honest or virtuous. Is this correct, or am I leaping to conclusions? Because I think it is absurd to conclude that no non-Christian person has ever done one truly virtuous or honest thing.

“Thanks for exercising what I think must be extreme self control in not lashing out at me for my apparently incredible stupidity…”

I don’t think you’re stupid. Obviously, we disagree…but I don’t think you’re any less intelligent than I am. In fact, you could be more intelligent.

Religious people often believe that I think they’re stupid…I never say this, but people think I believe this, and then tend to hold it against me? It gets frustrating trying to have a civil discussion when people are absolutely convinced that you think they’re stupid, and then get angry at me. And it’s not even what I think. I just think we have different presuppositions.

You’re obviously an intelligent person, but to you, faith seems to be the most important thing. To me, faith without reason is perilous. Short of direct revelation, I see no remedy for this in the immediate future.

“Bingo! It certainly is circular logic. I believe in God as the Bible explains Him because He tells me in the Bible that it is true.”

Ah, yes. That is entirely what I expected you would say. I had hoped that I wasn’t being presumptuous when I said that earlier.

So, you believe in God as explained in the Bible because the Bible tells you that it is true. Well, that is a starting point.

Why do you trust the Bible? Maybe I can find an answer somewhere…

“Double Bingo! This, I think, would be the best decision you could make. You don’t need to understand religion– you need to meet God, and the way to meet Him is decidedly NOT by trying to understand religion.”

Al, I also doubt my own perspectives quite a bit. But I don’t consider this to be a weakness; rather, I consider it to be a strength. I don’t know if there is a God – that’s why I’m an agnostic atheist. I live as if there aren’t any, but I can’t know for sure.

What is religion? It seems to be the human attempts to understand the spiritual/supernatural. I think I would like to believe in a religion; it could be nice. But I don’t understand. I don’t know if I will.

For me, the bottom line is that the Bible and Christianity say a lot of things that seem to contradict the world as I know them.

We can all sit here and say, well, unless you have God in your life, you really can’t understand Christianity, but then it goes and says things which we should be able to confirm pretty easily, and then we can’t. What then? Then we all just sit here and pretend that we still have all of the answers? That’s a no-go for me.

I don’t think I have all of the answers.

I think Christianity makes claims which are in direct contradiction of our existence. But that is largely my opinion.

Do I think we are inherently depraved? No, I don’t. I have studied civilizations from thousands of years before Christianity; civilizations flourishing alongside western and eastern Christianity; large parts of the world today largely apart from Christianity.

And do you know what I see? People who are not inherently depraved. People who are not missing anything that Christians have. People who do honest and virtuous things. People, like us.

Teleprompter…

You said a lot, but your overall argument boils down to the Euthyphro argument. So I’ll just tackle that head on.

Let’s summarize what you said: On one side of the coin goodness is anything God declares “good.” This could include slavery, genocide, rape, spousal abuse.

On the other side of the coin, God is good because something outside of him defines goodness…and if that’s the case, dispense with God altogether.

Both options suck.

So let me suggest a third. An option that also addresses your accusation that I HAVEN’T defined an objective standard for goodness, righteousness, justice or holiness.

That option is this: God IS the objective standard and defines these virtues because they are his very nature.

Here’s what that means: We get our sense of morality from his very being. These attributes define God’s character. It’s how we know him as God and as not just another human being, like you or me. It’s his makeup.

And because were made in his image, it’s where we get our disgust for atrocities like child rape and extreme malnutrition, and our sense that when someone works that he should get paid, and if someone steals he should be punished, and our feeling that it’s not right to eat our young.

Granted, you don’t have to believe in God to be moral, or not eat your young, or pay some one fair wages. You can reject him and still be appalled at atrocities, nurture your children and run payroll. You just can’t shake this moral sense in you.

But we still need an objective moral standard. Otherwise, were just talking about arbitrary, fashionable conventions imposed by man to suit his self-interest. Sleeping with a corpse or with someone else’s wife carries no intrinsic value if there isn’t an objective standard.

And by the way: God can NOT do anything as you suggest. The Bible says he can’t change. He can’t lie. Neither can he condone slavery or child rape or stealing–or punish the good or reward the wicked–because of the worth he’s infused in his creation.

Listen, if God could do anything and did condone slavery, child rape…I’m with you: that’s an ugly foundation for morality.

But that’s not the case.

In the end, God only wants one thing from you: worship. He says worship me and I’ll bless you. Disobey, and I’ll punish you. Not too much to ask for someone who created you.

Yet, you equated God’s threats with spousal abuse. All that does is demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of what I mean…

Tyro, would you agree that it’s wise to tell others that if they extort money from their job they’ll go to prison? That’s what I mean by “threats.”

And just so were super clear on this: He CANNOT condemn or threaten us for anything. I thought I made this clear when I shared chapters like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 where God lists out penalties for disobedience and blessings for obedience. Even a sloppy reading of these texts and I think it’s clear he didn’t construct a moving target as you suggested.

I do admit the doctrine of election and free will are difficult and I struggle with them, too. And know this also: Depravity is something I wish WEREN’T true.

But the reality is, you also don’t have to believe in God to know that depravity exists–we all know that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world.

You admitted as much when you mentioned Hiroshima. Why did you stop there? Why didn’t you include the massacres in Russia, Cambodia, Bosnia or Uganda? Or are these just kinks we’ll work out if given enough time in the evolution of our view of killing?

And I think it’s striking they way you phrased our “view of killing has evolved.” The view, yes. The fact, no.

And hear me out: We DO do some wonderful things. I don’t deny that. I think you might have pegged me as someone who views mankind as monsters. Not at all.

I’m a passionate lover of literature, music, architecture, clean drinking water, green revolution and non-violent resistance. Great accomplishments by great men, but…laughable in the shadow of God’s creation.

One thing I find enormously interesting–although not the least bit original–in your arguments is your fixation on the horrors of being on God’s “bad side.” This is intriguing. But also purposeful. Because, in reality, you’ve stopped before you got to the good part. Let me explain what I mean.

We can only make sense of the horrors of the world if we have some objective sense. Call that what you will, it’s there. I think we all can agree on that.

But the sense that some thing is god-awful wrong should raise a red flag that man is not to be the measure of goodness since, well, he seems to be behind all these “atrocities.”

But naturally, we’re going to shine if man is the standard. Stick a 3-year old in a cage match with another three year old and we’ll be here for weeks. Put a professional kick boxer in the cage…and it’s a kick in the face and a Coke.

That’s God as the perfect index for righteousness. In other words, my holiness is perfectly laughable in light of God’s holiness. Beside you, though, I probably look okay.

Here’s my point: One of the reasons I’m compelled by Christianity and not other religions is because of it’s explanation for the problem of suffering. And it’s conclusion. It all fits naturally, reasonably and realistically, unlike Hinduism or Mormonism or [fill in the blank].

The same is true for secular humanism. It has no satisfying answer for suffering because, namely, it can’t define suffering without referring to an outside index of justice. You want to inject man with subjective moral worth, but how can you do that without slipping into specieism?

The answer is you can’t. You’ll have to give moral worth to lions and tigers and bears, too. And, I think you’ll agree, that’s absurd.

What Demian said!

Seriously, thanks Demian for explaining better than I could. Sometimes I lack the education, vocabulary, insight, etc. to express what I’m thinking in comprehensible terms.

One thing: Someone is bound to pounce on your having said,

God can NOT… condone slavery …because of the worth he’s infused in his creation.

…if God… did condone slavery,…that’s an ugly foundation for morality.

Slavery receives ample attention as a legitimate enterprise or, at least, an accepted fact of life in both testaments of the Bible, even though historically its abolition in the West has been rooted in Christian thought. I’m not well enough informed on the topic to explain it, so you may want to rephrase or shed other light on your statement…

Al,
Always with the “not a true christian”. Also, I don’t care about any street smarts I may appear to have by claiming to be an ex-christian. I am an ex-christian. I was raised by an extremely fundamentalist minister. I read the bible and still do. I am pretty familiar with Evangelical Free and Southern Baptist doctrine.

So, appearantly E-Frees and Baptist got it wrong? If so, I actually agree with you, but you can get it wrong too.

Robert Madewell, do you know the history of your surname? Just curious. I don’t know it, but it always reminds me of Psalm 139:14 which is to me a very encouraging verse.

At any rate, you said to me,

you can get it wrong too.

Truer words were never spoken. I have, often, and still do “get it wrong,” despite my best intentions. If I have come across as a self-professed authority, please accept my apology. The Bible, which I trust implicitly, says that if anyone thinks that he knows anything, let him acknowledge that he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. So to answer your rhetorical question,

So, appearantly E-Frees and Baptist got it wrong?

…I would have to say, yes, inasmuch as none of us have it “right” in any way nearing perfect. Jesus is the Truth, but even redeemed men’s best efforts to define and apply the Truth that is Jesus in this world will, and do, fall short.

My point, to which you responded above, was to point out that Demian’s article was not saying that men can be good enough apart from Christ to earn eternal rewards, but that IN Christ we are made to be His reighteousness because He was first made to be our sin, thus propitiating on our behalf before God. Therefore any rewards we receive from God are actually due to Christ (the reason the redeemed in Revelation cast their crowns at His feet). That I did a poor job of explaining it I confess and apologize for.

Listen, if God could do anything and did condone slavery, child rape…I’m with you: that’s an ugly foundation for morality.

But that’s not the case.

If he did condone it, would you still say it’s an ugly foundation? After all, liking child rape would be built in to our morals. And since it would be an “objective” standard, you would have no basis for saying it’s ugly.

By your own definition, God could do anything because there are no higher standards and so no reasons outside God’s whim to say that child rape is wrong. And since you say you have no standards outside of God, you have no way of saying that what God has decided is good or bad. Your morals could be as horrific and evil to an outsider as the morals of a child-raping god would be to you. Though you say you have objective standards, you don’t since these standards are arbitrary and baseless, all you’ve done is transferred the decision-making process to someone else. You have no way to argue that God’s morals are good or just since you have no way to evaluate them.

In the end, God only wants one thing from you: worship. He says worship me and I’ll bless you. Disobey, and I’ll punish you. Not too much to ask for someone who created you.

But this is definitely not just, righteous or loving. Demanding absolute obedience is tyranny.

Tyro, would you agree that it’s wise to tell others that if they extort money from their job they’ll go to prison? That’s what I mean by “threats.”

Not good enough, sorry. Rules prohibiting extortion, theft or assault are there to accomplish a specific goal: protecting others. The consequences of disobeying these rules are also tailored to meet this end, through the use of rehabilitation, isolation, re-education and probation. When the rules become arbitrary or self-interested or the punishments vastly exceed the crimes we no longer have a just system.

The punishments God metes out are wildly disproportionate to the crime and because they are given long after the events, have no deterrent effect so serve only as vengeance and are definitely unjust. The crimes listed include thought crime which harms no one except God’s fragile ego.

So yes, extortion may warrant dismissal, but does it warrant torture and execution? Should your children be burned alive? Does failure to laugh at your bosses jokes warrant dismissal as well? If your boss tells you that you will be fired and beaten if you don’t dress like a clown for his kid’s birthday, is this a warning or a threat?

I think you need to do much, much more in order to defend what we’re seeing in the bible.

And just so were super clear on this: He CANNOT condemn or threaten us for anything. I thought I made this clear when I shared chapters like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 where God lists out penalties for disobedience and blessings for obedience. Even a sloppy reading of these texts and I think it’s clear he didn’t construct a moving target as you suggested.

I didn’t suggest a moving target, I suggested that his rules are arbitrary, whimsical, and nonsensical. Since you list Deut, this has prohibitions against eating shellfish and wearing clothing of mixed fibres. Can you imagine any rules that are more arbitrary and nonsensical? Initially I thought “well, we could make rules which change depending on the day of the week, that would be as insane as it could get” but then I realized: the bible has plenty of those rules too. In fact, the 10 Commandments has one!

If these aren’t arbitrary, what is?

But the reality is, you also don’t have to believe in God to know that depravity exists–we all know that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world.

How dare you! Where do you get the gall, the arrogance to question God’s creation! What moral justification could you, a mere human, have to imply that any part of God’s creation isn’t perfect? Do you know God’s plan? Do you understand his mind? Can you create a human being? No, I thought not!

[fundy mode off]
…

Okay, maybe over the top but it has a point. You rave about God’s perfection, saying that anything we’ve built is “laughable in the shadow of God’s creation” and how we can’t understand Him yet in your next breath you say that the world is fundamentally wrong and broken. These two positions are polar opposites. If God has a plan and God is powerful, you have no basis for saying that it’s wrong. If God gives us our morals then he gave those “broken” rapists and murderers their morals too.

And don’t give me a free-will defence. I can’t contemplate rape or murder without feeling sickened. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say I’m physically unable to do these things. If my life isn’t impaired even though my will is constrained against murder and rape, their lives wouldn’t be constrained had God made them similarly constrained.

One of the reasons I’m compelled by Christianity and not other religions is because of it’s explanation for the problem of suffering. And it’s conclusion. It all fits naturally, reasonably and realistically, unlike Hinduism or Mormonism or [fill in the blank].

What the…? That’s such an outlandish claim I think you really need to devote a whole post to it!

The same is true for secular humanism. It has no satisfying answer for suffering because, namely, it can’t define suffering without referring to an outside index of justice.

Simply not true. Suffering is independent of justice.

You’ll have to give moral worth to lions and tigers and bears, too. And, I think you’ll agree, that’s absurd.

Why must I agree that this is absurd? Animals suffer. That is, they can feel suffering and they are definitely in positions to suffer. Slow, agonizing deaths, fire, starvation, parasitism, disease, thirst. Humans experience the same thing but over only hundreds of thousands of years not hundreds of millions. So much suffering over so many unimaginable years, it can only speak to an indifferent universe.

I don’t have to say that the actions of lion are moral or immoral to say that when a lion starves to death it isn’t suffering. Remember: suffering isn’t the same as “evil” (whatever that is).

You rave about God’s perfection, saying that anything we’ve built is “laughable in the shadow of God’s creation” and how we can’t understand Him yet in your next breath you say that the world is fundamentally wrong and broken. These two positions are polar opposites.

Just for the record, Tyro et al, the Bible says that:
[1] God, NOT His creation is perfect
[2] God’s creation was “good” and, in man’s case, “very good”
[3] Man’s rebellion was the first exception to the very good state of God’s creation
[4] Because of man’s having sinned, God cursed the earth “for man’s sake,” bringing about the messed-up state the world is in today.

I have no further point to establish by telling this– just want to place a biblical context next to your comments.

Carry on…

Tyro:

You have no way to argue that God’s morals are good or just since you have no way to evaluate them.

Back to exhibit A, God himself. He defines goodness by his nature. Not that he SAYS this is bad, that is good.

Demanding absolute obedience is tyranny.

I can see how this wouldn’t jive with you. But…

The punishments God metes out are wildly disproportionate

Forgive me, but sins against an infinite being are not wildly disproportionate.

I didn’t suggest a moving target, I suggested that his rules are arbitrary, whimsical, and nonsensical.

Arbitrary and whimsical doesn’t sound like a moving target? Okay, then, “a spastic target.”

You rave about God’s perfection, saying that anything we’ve built is “laughable in the shadow of God’s creation” and how we can’t understand Him yet in your next breath you say that the world is fundamentally wrong and broken. These two positions are polar opposites. If God has a plan and God is powerful, you have no basis for saying that it’s wrong. If God gives us our morals then he gave those “broken” rapists and murderers their morals too.

And don’t give me a free-will defence.

You won’t permit me to use the only logical explanation? What antics. I can’t play when you poison the well.

Regardless, I never implied he deterministically gives us our morals and that’s that. You and I got that sense embedded in us. As does the rapist. Yet the rapist decides to rebel against that sense. We choose how to interact with that intrinsic moral sense.

By the way, you do the fundy thing well.

Suffering is independent of justice.

Expand so I can see where you’re going.

Remember: suffering isn’t the same as “evil” (whatever that is).

Okay, now I get it. Sorry for the confusion of terms. And I’m curious, do you resist the idea that our world is not broken or there isn’t something terribly wrong? Or does saying this not make sense in a world without objectivity? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

aj & Demian,

“According to your ways and according to your deeds they will judge you,”Says the Lord GOD Ezekiel 24:14

What are God’s ways and deeds? A world with needless suffering and pain, advanced through blood and death. What good are mere words (the bible) when we can see God’s actions and inactions?

Robert Madewell, do you know the history of your surname? Just curious. I don’t know it, but it always reminds me of Psalm 139:14 which is to me a very encouraging verse.

 
It’s an American mispelling of Maydwell which is a shortening of Maydenswell (Maiden’s Well). It originates in South Hamptonshire, England.

Demian,

Forgive me, but sins against an infinite being are not wildly disproportionate.

I don’t understand that. What action & what punishment are you referring to, and how is the finite-ness of the target relevant? Shouldn’t this mean God is more able to weather minor spats and disagreements? Our parents have a finite life and finite patience yet they forgive us our minor insults and abuse, knowing that we’re young. Yet God lacks even this level of compassion?

You and I got that sense embedded in us. As does the rapist. Yet the rapist decides to rebel against that sense. We choose how to interact with that intrinsic moral sense.

If you imagine that rapists, paedophiles, serial killers and psychopaths have the same ability to distinguish right from wrong as you or I have, then I would really like to see your evidence. Real evidence, not a bible quote (as that would just show yet another place where the bible has it wrong). There are many studies which show that a subset of humanity has very impaired moral judgement which matches with our common experience and our studies of the animal kingdom.

To take a stance that’s at odds with all of that would require some pretty impressive evidence! I could certainly be wrong, but I’d like some reason to believe you.

And I’m curious, do you resist the idea that our world is not broken or there isn’t something terribly wrong? Or does saying this not make sense in a world without objectivity? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Our world is natural and evolved so “broken” isn’t applicable. Our world is. Animals live and die, suffer and thrive. There’s no goal or purpose so no way to say if it’s working or not. I’m not saying this is a good thing or bad, it just is what it is. You may as well say that gravity is “broken” because people get hurt when the fall.

However if you think there’s a designer and loving one at that, then “broken” doesn’t cover the half of it. There’s as much design and elegance in the Plasmodium parasite which transmits malaria and causes much suffering as there is in the Cyanobacteria which added oxygen into our atmosphere. There’s no objective measurement which could determine a “goal” or “purpose”, let alone which puts humans at the centre. There are no favourites, nothing gets a break.

I think one could argue that the world was designed to run like it is by a capricious or gladiator-style God that liked the bloodsport but to say it was once “good” and that humans have a special place seems to fly in the face of everything we know of the natural world. The only times I’ve ever seen anyone try to make this argument, they’ve had to fixate on things like bunny rabbits (the cute ones, not the ones that devastate crops throughout Australia), babies (the cute, healthy ones, not a Harlequin baby or the 30-40% which used to kill their mothers during childbirth) or sunsets (the good ones, not the ones that are vibrant because of forest fires and air pollution) and other happy things. It required a firm fixation on a narrow subset of the world and a total avoidance of the world as a whole, generally dismissed as “satanic”. Right.

Or does saying this not make sense in a world without objectivity?

I don’t understand what objectivity has to do with anything. I try to be as objective as I can. That’s why I don’t accept anything on faith – because I know how frequently we delude ourselves or see only what we want to see.

Demian,

Yes, you’re correct that my argument essentially boils down to the Euthyphro dilemma.

I agree with your summary of what I said, and that both options of the dilemma (as I presented them) suck.

So I’d like to discuss the third option that you’ve presented.

“God IS the objective standard and defines these virtues because they are his very nature.

Here’s what that means: We get our sense of morality from his very being. These attributes define God’s character. It’s how we know him as God and as not just another human being, like you or me. It’s his makeup.”

So, you argue that we know God from any other human being because God possesses some essential attributes such as honesty, justice, and virtue. Why are these attributes essential to God’s nature? Who are we to judge what is essential to a god or not? Could God not be entirely malevolent and deceitful?

You’re arguing that we can’t judge or define God because we’re the puny humans. Yet you have given essential attributes as to what God must be, and yet you are one of us. How do you know that God must conform to those attributes?

I believe that we have assigned those attributes to God, but that there is no way for us to know that there is any being who possesses those attributes with the evidence we have now.

You assign attributes to a God and simultaneously assert that God’s ways are beyond our ways. Why should anything from our perspective be essential for God to be God; why do you get to define God if God is so nebulous and mysterious as to be beyond human definition?

Christianity seems to propose both the nebulous and mysterious God which tries to defuse the Problem of Evil, and the personal and caring God which supposedly intervenes to save humanity. How do you know about either God? Who are you to say what attributes are essential to a God? Are you saying that those attributes are essential to God because that is how humans have always thought God should be? Didn’t you just imply that it is irrelevant what humans think of God earlier in this conversation?

I believe that we give God attributes. God must be a certain way, because this is how we have always thought about it. I’m sure the Greeks and Romans would argue that it is necessary for the Gods to be polytheistic. It’s interesting that the qualities of gods always match the sources of the tradition. It’s not an independent assessment of the world, and then deciding how God(s) should be. It’s this whole other fantastical world, largely based on tradition rooted in speculation.

God is arbitrary, Demian. The concept of God has fluctuated throughout human history. We have had a diverse assortment of gods and spirits, pantheons and trinities.

Your assignment of attributes to God’s character is also arbitrary. These attributes define God’s character, and it’s how we know him as God? Or is it, these attributes define how we felt God was at one time, and that’s how we know it feels like we think it does?

“And because were made in his image, it’s where we get our disgust for atrocities like child rape and extreme malnutrition, and our sense that when someone works that he should get paid, and if someone steals he should be punished, and our feeling that it’s not right to eat our young.

Granted, you don’t have to believe in God to be moral, or not eat your young, or pay some one fair wages. You can reject him and still be appalled at atrocities, nurture your children and run payroll. You just can’t shake this moral sense in you.

But we still need an objective moral standard. Otherwise, were just talking about arbitrary, fashionable conventions imposed by man to suit his self-interest. Sleeping with a corpse or with someone else’s wife carries no intrinsic value if there isn’t an objective standard.”

It seems to me that you are arguing for two different things, and then that you are conflating them.

First, you seem to argue for a moral sense. You also seem to say that it is objective?

Second, I think you are arguing for the existence of objective morality (which you seem to believe our moral sense leads us to).

I think we could say that there is a moral sense, or even a sense that there is some kind of objective morality, without the existence of an objective morality. That’s not necessarily what I’m arguing, but I wanted to clear things up before I went any farther as to the distinction between the two arguments.

So you seem to say, the existence of a moral sense, and the necessity of objective morality both seem to indicate God’s involvement in forming human morality, as you indicate your belief that our disgust for atrocities is present because we are made in God’s image.

I do not see why our disgust for things like child rape and extreme malnutrition could not come from empathy, parental instinct, or societal conditioning.

So God is disgusted with child rape and extreme malnutrition…why is he disgusted with them? You say that it’s his nature. And it just is. I can’t question it.

Now, I believe that you say it’s God’s nature because we don’t like those things, and then we just attribute that to God.

I would just proceed to attempt to explain why we don’t like those things, without referencing God. Or you could go on and try to explain why God doesn’t like those things. Does he not like them because they are contrary to this nature of his? Then what is his nature? There you go, if you answer that you have to tell me why God has certain attributes. But according to your definitions, it is impossible for humanity to define why God has certain attributes. His ways are beyond our ways. Yet God has to have certain attributes for us to distinguish between God and humans? Who says that? We say that. It all goes back to us.

We believe that if someone steals, he should be punished, because we have intuitions about fairness. We have these intuitions because of how human civilizations have developed, because we are social creatures. Society could not develop if we didn’t believe in fair payment for wages or punishment for criminals.

Yes, I agree with you that we have a moral sense. And it seems apparent to me that we have this moral sense because we are social creatures. But does a moral sense indicate objective morality?

You declare that we need an objective moral standard to avoid “arbitrary, fashionable conventions imposed by man to suit his self-interest”.

Sleeping with a corpse, eh? I’ve seen dead bodies. I wouldn’t want to sleep with a corpse.

Do you know what scares the living daylights out of me more than anything else I’ve ever seen? A dead body. I’ve only seen one twice, both times during wakes, and each time I was petrified.

Now, I think there may be acceptably good reasons why we would not want people to have sex with dead bodies. We respect the fact that it was once a living body; we are haunted by the absence of life; we may be aware of potential medical problems which could result.

Why not sleep with someone else’s wife? We find value in keeping our promises; society has found value in fidelity; societies that encourage fidelity may endure longer. But I do not see any objective sanctity in fidelity just because it’s objectively good. It’s good because there are reasons that it is good – people and societies have subjective reasons behind the ethical mores of their times.

Perhaps there may be some reasons that will always make it the case the fidelity is the best option, and from that angle, we could offhandedly say that fidelity is objectively good, but it would still be “good” because of separate reasons, not because it is an inherently good act.

I could do this with every example, Demian – I could keep going through each of your possible examples and demonstrating the subjective reasons behind ethical mores as they have evolved through time and the development of societies. I could list the reasons behind your objective morals and give you some of the solid reasons which persist in our consciousness and give us the illusion of objectivity.

It’s ironic to me that your explanation of God ultimately seems to come down to an arbitrary set of attributes — God must be this way, or we wouldn’t know God from any other human. Yet who determined these essential attributes for God?

Yes, morality is complex with many changing conventions. But the conventions are not entirely arbitrary – there are subjective reasons underlying much of morality, but there are reasons.

You seem to be implying that subjective morality is underpinned by nothing.

In each time and place in human history, individuals have had intuitions about what is right – and yes, we want to determine which intuitions are more right than others. I believe that we can assign values to intuitions, but I believe that it is difficult and that there may be too many variables to define morality precisely. We live in a messy world.

Interpreting morality is like interpreting law — there are compelling conflicts of interest and multiple sources for decision-making, all of which impact how we act in various circumstances.

We have to do the hard work and sort out the various subjective reasons for our moral intuitions, and decipher the merits of various competing, compelling interests — much like a legal decision. If we agree that morality is objective and that it is rooted in God’s being, and God’s attributes are arbitrary, then how can we even get off the ground?

“And by the way: God can NOT do anything as you suggest. The Bible says he can’t change. He can’t lie. Neither can he condone slavery or child rape or stealing–or punish the good or reward the wicked–because of the worth he’s infused in his creation.”

Great, let’s examine what the Bible says. God can’t change, can’t lie, and can’t condone slavery, according to you. So why does the god of the Bible bargain with Lot and Noah, why does he intentionally deceive, and why is slavery permitted?

“Listen, if God could do anything and did condone slavery, child rape…I’m with you: that’s an ugly foundation for morality.

But that’s not the case.”

Oh, so God commanding genocide in Joshua and other places is a firm foundation for morality? I think it is the case that the OT God is often capricious and will do anything.

“In the end, God only wants one thing from you: worship. He says worship me and I’ll bless you. Disobey, and I’ll punish you. Not too much to ask for someone who created you.

Yet, you equated God’s threats with spousal abuse. All that does is demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of what I mean…”

So if you have children, and you want them to completely obey you, then it is okay to torture them if they disobey you? Because you created them, so it’s not too much to ask to get them to obey you.

Once you create someone, don’t you have certain obligations? Isn’t there a concept such as negligence? Or can God do anything to us, which you vehemently denied earlier?

“But the reality is, you also don’t have to believe in God to know that depravity exists–we all know that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world.

You admitted as much when you mentioned Hiroshima. Why did you stop there? Why didn’t you include the massacres in Russia, Cambodia, Bosnia or Uganda? Or are these just kinks we’ll work out if given enough time in the evolution of our view of killing?”

Thanks for slamming me there, Demian.

You’re assuming that I have a naive view of human progress. I don’t.

I know that there are wrongs and inequities in our world, and that this is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. I know that we are violent creatures. I thought Hiroshima and Dresden were strong enough examples, but I’ll keep going.

Russia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Uganda, Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, North Korea. And we both know that we could keep going ad infinitum.

Yes, there is a violence inherent to humanity…if there is a God, he could’ve reduced our propensity for violence. But no, it didn’t happen that way.

Naturalism does a much better job of explaining the problem of evil. The struggle to survive can account for why there is so much latent aggression, and the struggle to build societies and civilizations can account for why we have developed and refined our morality as social creatures to a limited extent.

“And I think it’s striking they way you phrased our “view of killing has evolved.” The view, yes. The fact, no.”

It shouldn’t be striking. We both agree about the violence and aggression that is seemingly the nature of humanity. We disagree about its source. And yes, our view on killing has evolved. This is sufficient to demonstrate a shift in our perceptions of morality, which was my argument anyway.

“And hear me out: We DO do some wonderful things. I don’t deny that. I think you might have pegged me as someone who views mankind as monsters. Not at all.

I’m a passionate lover of literature, music, architecture, clean drinking water, green revolution and non-violent resistance. Great accomplishments by great men, but…laughable in the shadow of God’s creation.”

Laughable? What I find laughable is that people would give a God credit for the great advancements of civilization when humans have battled and toiled for thousands of years on their own. Who intervened to build the pyramids or to whisper the Golden Rule in the ear of Confucius? It sure wasn’t Yahweh.

“One thing I find enormously interesting–although not the least bit original–in your arguments is your fixation on the horrors of being on God’s “bad side.” This is intriguing. But also purposeful. Because, in reality, you’ve stopped before you got to the good part. Let me explain what I mean.”

Of course nothing I say is original. I’m not trying to be original. I’m trying to be honest and thorough. If I have to cover the same ground again and again, I’ll do it.

Why should I fixate on your God’s “bad side”? You’re arguing that the Biblical god is in his being the source of honesty and virtue.

And how do I demonstrate that this claim is implausible? By focusing on the god of the Bible’s “bad side”. Do you expect me to concede that to you without evidence that God is the source of morality – that the Biblical God is the source of morality, when there are so many obvious counter-examples? It would be a miserable failure if I did not draw attention to them again.

This is my argument – the god of the Bible did things which none of us would consider honest or virtuous, yet you say that this is our standard. This is why I fixate on the negative examples.

“We can only make sense of the horrors of the world if we have some objective sense. Call that what you will, it’s there. I think we all can agree on that.

But the sense that some thing is god-awful wrong should raise a red flag that man is not to be the measure of goodness since, well, he seems to be behind all these “atrocities.””

We can only make sense of the horrors of the world if there is some “objective” standard? What do you mean by objective?

We need a sense of fairness or a sense of inequity or a sense of empathy…if those are objective, fine. However, we don’t need any ultimate “wrong” to see that “life’s a piece of shit/when you look at it”. There are reasons for everything that shift according to time and circumstance, not immutable and unchanging priorities or rules or natures.

What we agree on is that humanity is behind atrocities. We also agree that things external to humanity are the measure of goodness. You see an “objective good” – I see reasons to call things “good”.

We are too aggressive and violent as a species. Could we not have been given free will and still have had our propensity to commit violent or aggressive acts reduced? If humans were only as aggressive as say, bonobos, do you think that would more closely indicate the existence of a god who abhors violence and aggression?

We agree that the problem is with humanity – I see evolution as the source, and you see “the fall” as the source. I see no evidence to suggest that “evil infected all creation through the fall” as al has implied, because there were predatory species long before even our hominid ancestors arrived on the scene.

“But naturally, we’re going to shine if man is the standard. Stick a 3-year old in a cage match with another three year old and we’ll be here for weeks. Put a professional kick boxer in the cage…and it’s a kick in the face and a Coke.

That’s God as the perfect index for righteousness. In other words, my holiness is perfectly laughable in light of God’s holiness. Beside you, though, I probably look okay. ”

Funny, Demian. You think you look stunning next to me and Tyro and James and Robert Madewell. But I dare suggest that you have no clothes.

“Here’s my point: One of the reasons I’m compelled by Christianity and not other religions is because of it’s explanation for the problem of suffering. And it’s conclusion. It all fits naturally, reasonably and realistically, unlike Hinduism or Mormonism or [fill in the blank].

The same is true for secular humanism. It has no satisfying answer for suffering because, namely, it can’t define suffering without referring to an outside index of justice. You want to inject man with subjective moral worth, but how can you do that without slipping into specieism?

The answer is you can’t. You’ll have to give moral worth to lions and tigers and bears, too. And, I think you’ll agree, that’s absurd.”

What? I really don’t understand this, so I’m going to break it down further, which should help everyone.

Okay first, I think naturalism has a better answer to the problem of suffering than Christianity. Also, naturalism =/= secular humanism, necessarily, though in many cases the two definitely converge.

I believe that suffering happens because of the competition for life with regards to the vast indifference of our universe. You seem to believe that a God made us this aggressive and that it’s our fault anyway.

This is why I called it abuse. You do not understand why I used the word abuse. But here’s why: if you create humanity to possess the capacity to be so violent and so aggressive as you and I have demonstrated so thoroughly, then you own some of the problem with humanity. And to blame us for it, and to pass off all responsibility onto us, for acting on our essential natures, and then to threaten and punish us for it, something which we had little to no control over — that is abuse. It is negligence, and it is abuse.

I can easily define suffering as pain, inequity, or loss.

Yes, I believe that humanity has subjective moral worth. And what do I mean by subjective again? I mean that there are reasons for it: namely, our higher consciousness and our shared human existence.

And what are you talking about with reference to specieism? Can an ant sense loss or inequity? For most animals, there is no desire, no reason for morality. For us and some of the higher primates, we have the requisite desires and reasons to establish morality.

Where does the argument become absurd – only when you refuse to establish the difference between animals without desires and reasons for morality and animals that possess desires and reasons for morality, does the argument become absurd.

Demian,

About your response to Tyro’s post:

For the record, I agree with you that there is something broken and terribly wrong with our world; I just disagree about the source.

Also for the record, I *would* like to see your free-will defense. I think it could be compelling.

Lastly, you commented that sins against an infinite being are not wildly disproportional. But would say that infinite punishment for finite beings is proportional? Food for thought.

I hope I am not becoming too much of a “fundy”.

If humans were only as aggressive as say, bonobos, do you think that would more closely indicate the existence of a god who abhors violence and aggression?

Bonobos swap sex for violence which is clearly wrong in some ill-defined but very real sense. And also they have no god, just atheists enjoying their peaceful, sexy lives. Icky.

Teleprompter…holy moly…lot to digest there…good, challenging thoughts, though, and I’ll be re-visiting your “post within a post” as I chew on it, so don’t think I’ve ignored you by not responding in detail now. Both you and Tyro do a good job of turning my mental crank. I appreciate it.

[By the way, I wasn't suggesting I look "stunning" next to you or T or RM. Just acceptable. One of the guys. ]

Demian,

No problem.

It took me all day to reply to your post. I assume that both of us prefer to be thorough rather than fast.

I apologize for the length of my response, but I wasn’t sure that I could cover all of your points because I do find your arguments challenging. I also realize that arguing is secondary for you, so I understand if your emphasis is elsewhere. But I appreciate the discussion.

Teleprompter,

I, for one, feel privileged to have been able to read the pre-release draft of your book, above. And I was even mentioned by name in it– cool! I hope you’ll consider sending me a signed first edition when it’s published…

Al,

Again, I apologize for the length, but I really wanted to cover the points raised by you and Demian in depth. I haven’t been doing this for quite as long as you or Demian, so it comes out a bit wordy. I’ll polish it up and send you a manuscript if you like it.

[insert "Paperback Writer" lyrics]