Re: Commentary: Challenging Darwin

On 7 Feb, 17:58, "Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Burkhard wrote:
On 7 Feb, 00:43, Jason Spaceman <notrea...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
From the article:
---------------------------------------------------
Christians devoted to promoting balanced science education in public
schools have every reason to be disgruntled.

yeah, let's use the political art of compromise in the science
curriculum. Some people believe 5+1 equals 6, others may think it
equal 8, so let's teach our children that it equals 7 and everybody is
happy.

Indeed, Dawkins would never acknowledge the existence of an omniscient,
omnipresent God, as doing so would mean human life has intrinsic value,
moral absolutes exist

not really. Either actions are intrinsically good and can be rational
identified as such - no God needed. Or actions are only good because
God says they are - and we have moral relativism, as tomorrow he might
change his mind,

You're not helping the evolutionist cause with your bad philosophy.
Philosophers have been arguing moral philosophy and ethics for 2,000
years at least,

Indeed - and my argument was first voiced this way by scholastic
philosophy within the Christian tradition. The only thing I needed to
show, and for this old and never satisfactorily solved debate is more
than sufficient, that a) religion, not even the particularly Christian
flavor, results necessarily in moral absolutes and b) atheism does not
necessarily result in relativism. Both together debunc the stupid myth
that you need religion fo rmoral absolutes.


so developing a "rational" theory of good and evil is
not as easy as you think it is.  Jews and Christians don't believe God
can ever "change his mind" about moral basics, after the covenants he
made with Abraham and Noah.  For God to have to change his mind would
mean that he wasn't right the first time, contradicting his existence as
an all-powerful, omniscient God.

The argument went historically like this: if he is all-powerful then
he can't be bound, and that means he MUST be able to change his mind.
Note that changing your mind also is not necessarily an admission of
past errors, it can merely be a result of changing circumstances.

The "covenant idea" was precisely proposed to address this issue, but
a) you get again to the concept of a "boudn deity" and more
problematically, you get there because of the (absolute) moral
imperative of keeping a contract, hence you get in infinite regress.

Muslims, on the other hand, don't believe that Allah's word is binding,
because that would amount to a restriction on what an all-powerful God
can do, a contradiction.  Not because Allah can change his mind, but
maybe He didn't really mean it when He made a covenant with Abraham,
because He knew that Mohammed would be born someday and He wanted to
ditch the Jews in favor of the Muslims after that--so-called
"replacement theology."

Granted - and the you don't get moral absolutes, i;d say, but
something more sensible

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: the final night
    ... > audible voice of God, and 2) God breaks in on a ... ie. not being directly led by another Christian. ... >> turn become violent myself, I made a vow to turn away from it the day I ... >> naturally logical mind. ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • BaalZebub
    ... Im not quite sure what the Baals are, but I understand them to be idols and that some of the people from that time really made God displeased with them by following the Baals instead of God - thou shalt not have other Gods before me. ... Does a Jew who does great great work and helps the needy and sick with goodness in his heart deserve heaven less than a Christian who does nothing good? ... "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ... The mind of sinful man is death but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: the final night
    ... audible voice of God, and 2) God breaks in on a person ... ie. not being directly led by another Christian. ... > turn become violent myself, I made a vow to turn away from it the day I ... > naturally logical mind. ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Passed 70-216
    ... God is explaining to a man why he didn't make the cut to Heaven. ... >> poetry, novels, fairy tails or whatever, would you mind reading St. ... Christian, Muslim, ... It takes more faith to ...
    (microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse)
  • Re: Commentary: Challenging Darwin
    ... Some people believe 5+1 equals 6, ... identified as such - no God needed. ... Philosophers have been arguing moral philosophy and ethics for 2,000 years at least, so developing a "rational" theory of good and evil is not as easy as you think it is. ... Jews and Christians don't believe God can ever "change his mind" about moral basics, after the covenants he made with Abraham and Noah. ...
    (talk.origins)