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Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2009 01:53 pm
@Mr Fight the Power,
Mr. Fight the Power wrote:
I am a better person than you because I need no reward or punishment to feel repentance.

If there is a God, it is far more likely to me that this whole heaven and hell nonsense was simply his method for distinguishing motive.

When we reach the gates you will be utterly flabbergasted when God says "Welcome to all those who did good by his fellow man without turning an ear to my whims."


Be gentle he is probably 14 years old.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

I am a better person than you because I need no reward or punishment to feel repentance.


You were being sarcastic right? By your own world views you are no 'better' then him as you I would assume be a relativist. You assume that not sinning with no goal of a reward some how makes you 'better' then someone who sets their eyes on a goal. I'm going to assume you were just being sarcastic.
 
Kolbe
 
Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2009 04:35 pm
@awoelt,
To be fair, it is the young philosopher's section.
 
Mr Fight the Power
 
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2009 12:59 pm
@click here,
click here wrote:
You were being sarcastic right? By your own world views you are no 'better' then him as you I would assume be a relativist. You assume that not sinning with no goal of a reward some how makes you 'better' then someone who sets their eyes on a goal. I'm going to assume you were just being sarcastic.


I would need a new thread to get into my views on moral truth, but I can say that it is a fairly universal opinion that good deeds are only good when they are not self-serving.

Would you or he like to argue that it is not better to do good for its own sake that to do good for the sake of some other reward?
 
Kolbe
 
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2009 01:06 pm
@awoelt,
Because I believe in consequentialism. The results are exactly the same, I either give a child a toy, or give a child a toy. Getting their parents to like me has nothing to do with the fact that I have done good in giving a child a toy! (please do not think me a paedophile for this analogy, it was an on the spot thing)

And please do start that new thread, an explanation is never a bad thing.
 
Mr Fight the Power
 
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2009 10:12 pm
@Kolbe,
If a dog finds this toy and chews it up, is it behaving immorally?
 
click here
 
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2009 02:54 am
@Mr Fight the Power,
Mr. Fight the Power wrote:
I would need a new thread to get into my views on moral truth, but I can say that it is a fairly universal opinion that good deeds are only good when they are not self-serving.

Would you or he like to argue that it is not better to do good for its own sake that to do good for the sake of some other reward?



Well thats great to hear that you and several other people share that opinion. At least you do agree that what you view as 'good' and 'better' is only your opinion and in this context apparently shared with others. I bet that makes you feel pretty good about yourself that you aren't alone in your views. I'm sure you wouldn't get caught up in that and assume that you are 'right' just because of 'fairly universal opinion'.


If I got a nice chunk of people to all state that they believe that good deeds are the 'best' good deeds when there is a reward expected I'm sure that would get me places... Golly, I could even use that for my argument couldn't I? Hmm... isn't that what you just did? Of course me and my group would all state that it is just our opinion and that it is universal with in our group.


Surely this can't be your proof for why you are 'better' then the OP. I think the only place you could go from here would be to state that: "my group has more people in it then you so I must be more right then you because I have a higher chance of being 'right' then you"....


If so then lets say me and my friends all think you are ugly, and we'll add to that everyone that walks down the street past you also thinks you are ugly. I think you'd have a hard time coming up with a list of people that would say that you are not ugly compared to the number of people that say you are. It would seem then according to what I assume must be your logic that you are ugly.


But no, I'm not going to argue that good deeds are better when done with out some external reward. I'm just showing you that you have no grounds to state that you are 'better' then him what so ever as I said in my original post.
 
Mr Fight the Power
 
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2009 06:20 am
@click here,
click here wrote:
But no, I'm not going to argue that good deeds are better when done with out some external reward. I'm just showing you that you have no grounds to state that you are 'better' then him what so ever as I said in my original post.


Let me ask you this:

If "better" is a meaningful concept, at least to people, and if nature has placed in us a natural definition of what it is to be good that is fairly universal to people, what is wrong with making judgments based off this idea of good?
 
click here
 
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2009 12:21 pm
@Mr Fight the Power,
Mr. Fight the Power wrote:
Let me ask you this:

If "better" is a meaningful concept, at least to people, and if nature has placed in us a natural definition of what it is to be good that is fairly universal to people, what is wrong with making judgments based off this idea of good?


What do you mean when you say that "nature has placed in us a natural definition of what it is to be good"? Are you referring to it as some sort of innate gift?

Also when did 'nature place in us' that their are different variations of good deeds? We're not talking about whether murder is worse then giving hugs. You may have an argument to say something about nature in that. No we are talking about you being 'better' then someone because you do your good deed without the expectation of a lollipop.
 
Mr Fight the Power
 
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2009 01:15 pm
@click here,
click here wrote:
What do you mean when you say that "nature has placed in us a natural definition of what it is to be good"? Are you referring to it as some sort of innate gift?

Also when did 'nature place in us' that their are different variations of good deeds? We're not talking about whether murder is worse then giving hugs. You may have an argument to say something about nature in that. No we are talking about you being 'better' then someone because you do your good deed without the expectation of a lollipop.


Morality is an evolutionary trait based in the evolutionary fitness humans get from living in social groups.

Since it is only real selective altruism that provides this benefit, it stands to reason that moral (good social behavior) that is performed without concern for reciprocation would be rewarded over that which is performed selfishly.

While I have not seen data about this particular concept, I have seen data that pointed to universal moral decision making and judgment.
 
click here
 
Reply Tue 3 Feb, 2009 03:37 am
@Mr Fight the Power,
Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

Since it is only real selective altruism that provides this benefit, it stands to reason that moral (good social behavior) that is performed without concern for reciprocation would be rewarded over that which is performed selfishly.


It would then be rewarded under the umbrella of those who share that opinion. It may get the reward but that does not mean that it is deserving of the reward aside from opinion. Again it is only an action that is perceived as 'better' to those who share that opinion. You have no authority raising your opinion outside of your umbrella. There is nothing stopping you from doing it but its just words lost in the wind.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

While I have not seen data about this particular concept, I have seen data that pointed to universal moral decision making and judgment.


Universal for some but not all.
 
Henrik phil
 
Reply Wed 11 Feb, 2009 06:11 am
@awoelt,
awoelt;40125 wrote:

The fact that if you sin without going through the repentance process you go to HELL!:devilish:keeps you from sinning.


I do not believe in sin. What i think is that the definition of right and wrong has no universal truth, but it differs from person to person.(you cab call me relativist) For Hitler, it was totally right to kill jews, he felt them like a pain in the ass, ant in his opinion, they had caused the loss of ww1. I don't think it's all right to kill jews, because i think killing makes the world a bad place to live in. I do not say that killing i universally wrong, but i personally condemn it because it makes everything unsecure if the people around you try to kill you all the time.

Back to this hell-thing... If God exists, and i say IF because i have no clear empirical evidence of it, and if he is a god like described in the bible, I would preciate to get to hell. If satan (the satan decribed in the bible) exists, I think he has a lot more insight than God, he resisted this crazy bastard, and gave men the fruit of wisdom. According to the bible, the mind of Adam and Eve before their fall was more like that of an ape, just walking around like sheep. In the bible, men are compared to sheep, and God as their shepherd. I WILL NOT BE A SHEEP!

If some prejudice and ignorant God wants to put me in hell just because i think freely, I would personally try to fight him down and let him taste his own terrors. I am just trying to live this life in a pursuit of wisdom, and you can't get wisdom by using dogmas without being wary. I think that is the core of philosophy, critical thinking.

Though you are open minded, it seems to me that you have a huge lack of this key element. If everybody had been like you, we would probably still believed that the world is flat. Somebody doubted what people had told them, and that led to enlightment.

And by the way, if you believe in sin, you should not poke people in the eye, thats BAD! (Unless it is a surgical intervention of course, but that would also be a sin if the patient didn't want his eye to be fixed, bla bla bla) Very Happy
:poke-eye:

Laughing:band::devilish::bigsmile::sarcastic: (Just trying to scare away old philosophers from this forum by acting childish. They're all prejuduce, it's human nature!)
 
comdavid
 
Reply Thu 12 Feb, 2009 10:12 am
@awoelt,
nowadays a atheist are supported by the darwin theories..waht about 200 years of the evolucionism.

?
 
click here
 
Reply Thu 12 Feb, 2009 11:49 am
@Henrik phil,
Henrik wrote:

Back to this hell-thing... If God exists, and i say IF because i have no clear empirical evidence of it, and if he is a god like described in the bible, I would preciate to get to hell. If satan (the satan decribed in the bible) exists, I think he has a lot more insight than God, he resisted this crazy bastard, and gave men the fruit of wisdom. According to the bible, the mind of Adam and Eve before their fall was more like that of an ape, just walking around like sheep. In the bible, men are compared to sheep, and God as their shepherd. I WILL NOT BE A SHEEP!

If some prejudice and ignorant God wants to put me in hell just because i think freely, I would personally try to fight him down and let him taste his own terrors. I am just trying to live this life in a pursuit of wisdom, and you can't get wisdom by using dogmas without being wary. I think that is the core of philosophy, critical thinking.


I'm curious, why you would wish to go to hell if you did except that everything the Bible says is true?

A little thing that you may not have noticed about what you have said is when you assign attributes to God, i.e. "prejudice and ignorant"

You assume that you are right and he is wrong. If God exists and has established moral absolutes then you are absolutely wrong if you dissagree. You say that if God existed then he is also crazy. You call him crazy because he is different then you and you don't like the differences. So again you are assuming that you are right and he is wrong. But that doesn't matter because you can't be right if he is right while sharing different opinions on what is right. So if (as you did in the above example) you were to accept God's existence as true then it doesn't matter what your opinions are they are wrong and you'd suffer because of it.

Also if you think that hell would be a great place because the 'insightfull satan' resides there you better get a few things straight. With reference to the Bible, as you did, satan is not currently in hell, nor does he have control over it nor does he want to be there.
 
Kolbe
 
Reply Thu 12 Feb, 2009 02:07 pm
@click here,
Henrik wrote:
They're all prejuduce


So much irony, so few words....

click here wrote:
I'm curious, why you would wish to go to hell if you did except that everything the Bible says is true?


Sado-masochism?

click here wrote:
You assume that you are right and he is wrong. If God exists and has established moral absolutes then you are absolutely wrong if you dissagree. You say that if God existed then he is also crazy. You call him crazy because he is different then you and you don't like the differences.


Not necessarily crazy, but surely being an omniscient, omnipotent transcedant being that somehow existed before time would surely give you a different moral outlook to those who are like flies on the face of the world.

click here wrote:
So again you are assuming that you are right and he is wrong. But that doesn't matter because you can't be right if he is right while sharing different opinions on what is right. So if (as you did in the above example) you were to accept God's existence as true then it doesn't matter what your opinions are they are wrong and you'd suffer because of it.


"The opposite of fact is fiction, but the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" (unsourced until someone can help, not exactly accurate).

click here wrote:
Also if you think that hell would be a great place because the 'insightfull satan' resides there you better get a few things straight. With reference to the Bible, as you did, satan is not currently in hell, nor does he have control over it nor does he want to be there.


Depends upon who you're on about. There's Lucifer the Fallen One, who's eternally chained and tormented in the ninth circle of hell forever frozen, or there's the Lucifer the Deceiver who looks slick as humanly possible somewhere in Vegas, buying people's souls in exchange for finite gifts. There's also a million more outlooks on satan, perhaps even 6.5 billion because, like god, there's so many ideas of satan that the true form is indeterminable.
 
click here
 
Reply Thu 12 Feb, 2009 02:17 pm
@Kolbe,
Kolbe wrote:

Depends upon who you're on about. There's Lucifer the Fallen One, who's eternally chained and tormented in the ninth circle of hell forever frozen, or there's the Lucifer the Deceiver who looks slick as humanly possible somewhere in Vegas, buying people's souls in exchange for finite gifts. There's also a million more outlooks on satan, perhaps even 6.5 billion because, like god, there's so many ideas of satan that the true form is indeterminable.


As I said "With reference to the Bible".
 
Kolbe
 
Reply Thu 12 Feb, 2009 03:28 pm
@click here,
That's the thing, the Bible itself can be ambiguous. To take a simple example, 'an eye for an eye' can be seen as either a moral imperative to take someone's eye if they take yours, or perhaps that if someone takes your eye then the maximum retribution allowed is the taking of theirs and no more.
Also, it'd be nice to see a reference to those bible passages, I don't remember much on satan in there.
 
click here
 
Reply Fri 13 Feb, 2009 04:39 am
@Kolbe,
Kolbe wrote:
That's the thing, the Bible itself can be ambiguous. To take a simple example, 'an eye for an eye' can be seen as either a moral imperative to take someone's eye if they take yours, or perhaps that if someone takes your eye then the maximum retribution allowed is the taking of theirs and no more.
Also, it'd be nice to see a reference to those bible passages, I don't remember much on satan in there.


As to your example of 'an eye for an eye' which can be taken from Exodus 21:24 and Leviticus 24:20. These laws were for the children of Israel and the rules were written to the leaders etc... and those that enforce the law. (the Bible times policemen) These punishments were to be taken literally. Many people in the current age believe that there should be a death penalty. This was also instated as well as equal punishments to fit the crime. Eye for eye, fracture for fracture etc... These rules are very literal.

Now you may go on to say that "well then why not abide by these laws today as Christians etc..." Jesus recognizes the government in the New Testament and says that you should give to Caeser what is his. It is speaking of taxes but it is a recognition that respect should be given to the government. Jesus also said in Matthew 5:38-40

Bible;NIV wrote:

38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[a] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.


This is now not talking to the law enforcers of the children of Israel but to the people under the governments laws. So it is not the person who's eye was taken that is the person that does the taking of the others eye. It is the law enforcement of the time that does that.

God set forth his rules for the children of Israel and they were meant to be taken literally.

As to what you ask about Satan:

The Bible; Job 1:7 wrote:

"The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."


The Bible; Matthew 4:1-3 wrote:

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
 
quandary
 
Reply Fri 13 Feb, 2009 07:56 pm
@awoelt,
awoelt;40125 wrote:
Alot of atheist will say "You can still live those principles without beliving in god". This is not true:nonooo:. The fact that if you sin without going through the repentance process you go to HELL!:devilish:keeps you from sinning. .


Read up on humanism.

awoelt;40125 wrote:

you will just say "oops. ill try not do that again." but you most likley will do it again.


Atheist or theist, guilt can get to any of us.
 
Kolbe
 
Reply Sat 14 Feb, 2009 12:25 pm
@click here,
click here;48389 wrote:
As to your example of 'an eye for an eye' which can be taken from Exodus 21:24 and Leviticus 24:20. These laws were for the children of Israel and the rules were written to the leaders etc... and those that enforce the law. (the Bible times policemen) These punishments were to be taken literally. Many people in the current age believe that there should be a death penalty. This was also instated as well as equal punishments to fit the crime. Eye for eye, fracture for fracture etc... These rules are very literal.

Now you may go on to say that "well then why not abide by these laws today as Christians etc..." Jesus recognizes the government in the New Testament and says that you should give to Caeser what is his. It is speaking of taxes but it is a recognition that respect should be given to the government. Jesus also said in Matthew 5:38-40



This is now not talking to the law enforcers of the children of Israel but to the people under the governments laws. So it is not the person who's eye was taken that is the person that does the taking of the others eye. It is the law enforcement of the time that does that.

God set forth his rules for the children of Israel and they were meant to be taken literally.


Well that must all be very nice from a Christian perspective, but think about the Jews. As far as I know they don't recognise Jesus as the Messiah, nor do they record the New Testament within those books. Plus the character of Jesus is himself a tad ambiguous, he's called a complete pacifist and the personification of virtue, yet not only does he turn violent in the temple, but he condemns an olive tree just because it does not bear fruit.

Your reply to the eye for an eye was also great, but you fail to address the fact it can be taken in multiple ways. Yes it may be administered by the local law enforcement, Jesus spoke against it and it is indeed a literal phrase. However, both aspects of it could apply to all of these, so if a man should kill my family, should I kill his? Or should I do no more than what he did to me? (the quote from Jesus notwithstanding).
 
click here
 
Reply Sat 14 Feb, 2009 01:15 pm
@Kolbe,
Kolbe wrote:
Well that must all be very nice from a Christian perspective, but think about the Jews. As far as I know they don't recognise Jesus as the Messiah, nor do they record the New Testament within those books. Plus the character of Jesus is himself a tad ambiguous, he's called a complete pacifist and the personification of virtue, yet not only does he turn violent in the temple, but he condemns an olive tree just because it does not bear fruit.


As to what you say about the Jews... You mentioned the Bible in your post so that is what I responded to.

Do you have a verse that refers to God/Jesus as a pacifist? If interpreted from the Bible if Jesus is a pacifist then so is God, if God is a pacifist then he wouldn't have helped his people win battles/wars etc..

Jesus's anger in the temple was righteous anger. The same kind of anger that God shows to people who refuse to do as he says. ex. Sodom and Gomorrah.

Just because we may not have an exacting interpretation of why Jesus cursed the fig tree doesn't mean that he is ambiguous. It is not that the situation can have more then one meaning it is only that the situation is unknown as to why such and such happened.


Kolbe wrote:

Your reply to the eye for an eye was also great, but you fail to address the fact it can be taken in multiple ways. Yes it may be administered by the local law enforcement, Jesus spoke against it and it is indeed a literal phrase. However, both aspects of it could apply to all of these, so if a man should kill my family, should I kill his? Or should I do no more than what he did to me? (the quote from Jesus notwithstanding).


Something can be falsely taken in the wrong way. For example: I approach a girl and say hello. She responds with a cheery hello and a beaming smile. I walk off assuming that she has immense emotional feelings for me though in this situation I am wrong.

I am by no means even close to a Bible scholar so I am bound to miss things. For example you state that it can be interpreted in multiple ways. Well I just found this verse:

Deuteronomy 19:15-21 wrote:


15 "One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. 16 If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, 17 then both men in the controversy shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. 18 And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, 19 then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. 20 And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.


I think that you would have to severely falsely interpret that to assume that it is not meant to be viewed as literal

So no you should not kill his family. As the Bible states it is the government that does this punishment.
 
 

 
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