Hell Is Real And Souls Go There

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
701

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

More simply, my claim is this: that it’s written that it happened is not sufficient proof for a reasonable person to believe that a man rose from the dead three days after his murder.

[/quote]

Is child rape evil?

Prove to me “evil” so that this thing then may indeed fall within it.
[/quote]

I cannot, and neither can anybody else.

Being what I call an agnostic theist, however, I have the possibility of an objective morality. That I cannot prove it to you or anybody else is a universal feature of life on this planet, not a deficiency in my worldview. Because you, in fact, can’t prove a single this to me about evil either.[/quote]

I can prove it’s evil. It causes grievous harm to another person such as yourself. Causing grievous harm to those who are such as yourself is evil.

702

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

More simply, my claim is this: that it’s written that it happened is not sufficient proof for a reasonable person to believe that a man rose from the dead three days after his murder.

[/quote]

Is child rape evil?

Prove to me “evil” so that this thing then may indeed fall within it.
[/quote]

I cannot, and neither can anybody else.

Being what I call an agnostic theist, however, I have the possibility of an objective morality. That I cannot prove it to you or anybody else is a universal feature of life on this planet, not a deficiency in my worldview. Because you, in fact, can’t prove a single this to me about evil either.[/quote]

I can prove it’s evil. It causes grievous harm to another person such as yourself. Causing grievous harm to those who are such as yourself is evil.[/quote]

You haven’t proved anything, you’ve just reduced the proposition to a more general axiom. Prove that the axiom is correct. And when you do that, you’ll have another axiom. Prove that that one is correct. And then keep going. It won’t end.

703

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

More simply, my claim is this: that it’s written that it happened is not sufficient proof for a reasonable person to believe that a man rose from the dead three days after his murder.

[/quote]

Is child rape evil?

Prove to me “evil” so that this thing then may indeed fall within it.
[/quote]

I cannot, and neither can anybody else.

Being what I call an agnostic theist, however, I have the possibility of an objective morality. That I cannot prove it to you or anybody else is a universal feature of life on this planet, not a deficiency in my worldview. Because you, in fact, can’t prove a single this to me about evil either.[/quote]

I can prove it’s evil. It causes grievous harm to another person such as yourself. Causing grievous harm to those who are such as yourself is evil.[/quote]

I’ll have to disagree, pat. Unless you base it on faith that is no less, well, faithful than believing in a deity.

Killing another human being–for any reason–is not evil. It is no more evil than the lion devouring the cubs of the male he’s run off. It’s simply risk vs reward.

If might is on your side, to fight off the lion, ok. If it’s on his, oh well.

Good and evil is faith-based ‘superstition.’ It gives deists/theists room at the big boy table, therefore, you’ll see the concepts rejected by some atheist circles.

704

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

More simply, my claim is this: that it’s written that it happened is not sufficient proof for a reasonable person to believe that a man rose from the dead three days after his murder.

[/quote]

Is child rape evil?

Prove to me “evil” so that this thing then may indeed fall within it.
[/quote]

I cannot, and neither can anybody else.

Being what I call an agnostic theist, however, I have the possibility of an objective morality. That I cannot prove it to you or anybody else is a universal feature of life on this planet, not a deficiency in my worldview. Because you, in fact, can’t prove a single this to me about evil either.[/quote]

I can prove it’s evil. It causes grievous harm to another person such as yourself. Causing grievous harm to those who are such as yourself is evil.[/quote]

I’ll have to disagree, pat. Unless you base it on faith that is no less, well, faithful than believing in a deity.

Killing another human being–for any reason–is not evil. It is no more evil than the lion devouring the cubs of the male he’s run off. It’s simply risk vs reward.

If might is on your side, to fight off the lion, ok. If it’s on his, oh well.

Good and evil is faith-based ‘superstition.’ It gives deists/theists room at the big boy table, therefore, you’ll see the concepts rejected by some atheist circles.

[/quote]

Christopher Hitchens on the necessity of evil:

705

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

More simply, my claim is this: that it’s written that it happened is not sufficient proof for a reasonable person to believe that a man rose from the dead three days after his murder.

[/quote]

Is child rape evil?

Prove to me “evil” so that this thing then may indeed fall within it.
[/quote]

I cannot, and neither can anybody else.

Being what I call an agnostic theist, however, I have the possibility of an objective morality. That I cannot prove it to you or anybody else is a universal feature of life on this planet, not a deficiency in my worldview. Because you, in fact, can’t prove a single this to me about evil either.[/quote]

I can prove it’s evil. It causes grievous harm to another person such as yourself. Causing grievous harm to those who are such as yourself is evil.[/quote]

I’ll have to disagree, pat. Unless you base it on faith that is no less, well, faithful than believing in a deity.

Killing another human being–for any reason–is not evil. It is no more evil than the lion devouring the cubs of the male he’s run off. It’s simply risk vs reward.

If might is on your side, to fight off the lion, ok. If it’s on his, oh well.

Good and evil is faith-based ‘superstition.’ It gives deists/theists room at the big boy table, therefore, you’ll see the concepts rejected by some atheist circles.

[/quote]

Christopher Hitchens on the necessity of evil:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2002/12/evil.html[/quote]

The necessity of faith, then.

There isn’t “evil” without faith.

Hitchens might have cared if this or that minority group was gassed. Maybe he even superstitiously saw it as ‘evil.’ The universe doesn’t care.

706

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
In other words, the conservation goes like this:

Skeptic: Did Jesus walk on water, and turn water into wine, and rise from the dead?

Christian: Yes.

Skeptic: How do you know?

Christian: Because it is written in the Bible.
[/quote]
No. The fact that something is in the Bible doesn’t make it true by default. There were witnesses to the event whose works both appear in the Bible and outside the bible. Not all the writings of the apostles, who were the witnesses to the event are in the Bible. I don’t have a reason to doubt the word of people who were otherwise honest men. There is no reason to beleive that the words of otherwise honest men would choose to then be selectively dishonest.

[quote]

Skeptic: How do you know that the Bible is telling the truth? How do you know that the Upanishads are not? How do you know that they aren’t somehow both telling the truth?

To which the answer is?

I’m not being a dick, by the way. I am genuinely curious as to how you concisely answer that question. My guess is that the answer is “faith.” Which is perfectly respectable, but you will have to admit that your believing in proposition Y does not make proposition Y, and that, therefore, proposition Y may, in fact, not be true.[/quote]

There are things in the Bible which are verifiably true. There are morals, facts and wisdom passed along by the Bible that are true in their use an application. A work that values truth, passes along things that we can verify as true gives me reason to beleive that other things in it that are not as verifiable as likely true as well.
I don’t know anything about Upanishads, so I don’t know if it’s true or false or anything else. I cannot speak about which I don’t know.
Just because the Bible is true, doesn’t mean that everything else by default is wrong. Truth can come from many sources. And you will find that the verifiable truths from other places are in agreement with the verifiable truths which come from the Bible.

707

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Good and evil is faith-based ‘superstition.’ It gives deists/theists room at the big boy table, therefore, you’ll see the concepts rejected by some atheist circles.

[/quote]

This. And the atheists who don’t admit this are simply deceiving themselves, or not following things through to their logical ends.

708

“Believing in a god (or gods) is superstitious mumbo-jumbo. You should have to prove such a thing before you assert its existence. And, don’t get me started on those who’d then incorporate their theism in their politics. That’s just EVIL.”

709

[quote]pat wrote:
No. The fact that something is in the Bible doesn’t make it true by default. There were witnesses to the event whose works both appear in the Bible and outside the bible. Not all the writings of the apostles, who were the witnesses to the event are in the Bible. I don’t have a reason to doubt the word of people who were otherwise honest men. There is no reason to beleive that the words of otherwise honest men would choose to then be selectively dishonest.
[/quote]

Then do you have no reason to doubt a man who tells you a litany of things that are verified to be true, and then goes on to tell you that he was molested by a giant talking pineapple in his youth?

Then you do have no reason to doubt Joseph Smith, who clearly said things that were true in his life, and also said that he was visited by the angel Moroni?

Then do you have no reason to doubt Herodotus, whose words have so often been corroborated by archaeological evidence, when he tell you that the gods intervened in favor of the Greek cause?

You position is essentially this: that you should believe because the people wrote down that it happened. But history is filled with people writing down things that we cannot believe to have actually happened, and you have no way around this but to accept all the other claims too. So, Achilles was dunked in the river, and Zeus raped Europa, and Agni danced in the sky like a shining treasure.

710

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
In other words, the conservation goes like this:

Skeptic: Did Jesus walk on water, and turn water into wine, and rise from the dead?

Christian: Yes.

Skeptic: How do you know?

Christian: Because it is written in the Bible.

Skeptic: How do you know that the Bible is telling the truth? How do you know that the Upanishads are not? How do you know that they aren’t somehow both telling the truth?

To which the answer is?

I’m not being a dick, by the way. I am genuinely curious as to how you concisely answer that question. My guess is that the answer is “faith.” Which is perfectly respectable, but you will have to admit that your believing in proposition Y does not make proposition Y, and that, therefore, proposition Y may, in fact, not be true.[/quote]

I think you would find “concise” to be an impossibly monumental task with that one :slight_smile:

711

By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.

712

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Good and evil is faith-based ‘superstition.’ It gives deists/theists room at the big boy table, therefore, you’ll see the concepts rejected by some atheist circles.

[/quote]

This. And the atheists who don’t admit this are simply deceiving themselves, or not following things through to their logical ends.[/quote]

The problem of course is that this atheistic position leads to stringent moral relativism, which is self-defeating and incoherent. You cannot reject the necessary existence of good and evil. Even Hitchens agrees with that much. I would view with extreme distaste and criticism any circle that would disavow the existence of the two.

713

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Good and evil is faith-based ‘superstition.’ It gives deists/theists room at the big boy table, therefore, you’ll see the concepts rejected by some atheist circles.

[/quote]

This. And the atheists who don’t admit this are simply deceiving themselves, or not following things through to their logical ends.[/quote]

The problem of course is that this atheistic position leads to stringent moral relativism, which is self-defeating and incoherent. You cannot reject the necessary existence of good and evil. Even Hitchens agrees with that much. I would view with extreme distaste and criticism any circle that would disavow the existence of the two.[/quote]

Edit: nevermind. Wrote something that I liked so much I decided to hold onto it, in case I can get paid to write it somewhereabouts.

Anyway, I agree completely.

714

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

Well, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, of course. That’s five.

And Mary Magdalene and Thomas, if you want to count those gospels. That makes seven.

And Paul, of course. It was still technically the “time of Jesus” when he appeared before Paul, so we have to count him too. That’s eight.

Too bad Rabbi Hillel didn’t write something about Jesus. He must have lived contemporaneously, and one would think that a person like Jesus couldn’t have escaped his attention.

715

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

To play Devils Advocate, you could say that about almost anything historically couldn’t you? For example, how do we know Alexander the Great even existed? Show me 5 people who witnessed his feats. show me 1.

716

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

To play Devils Advocate, you could say that about almost anything historically couldn’t you? For example, how do we know Alexander the Great even existed? Show me 5 people who witnessed his feats. show me 1.

[/quote]

Yes, absolutely.

But, then, that a conquering king existed requires less proof, being as it is rather commonplace throughout history, than that a man walked atop the sea.

717

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

To play Devils Advocate, you could say that about almost anything historically couldn’t you? For example, how do we know Alexander the Great even existed? Show me 5 people who witnessed his feats. show me 1.

[/quote]

Yes, absolutely.

But, then, that a conquering king existed requires less proof, being as it is rather commonplace throughout history, than that a man walked atop the sea.[/quote]

True, but it still requires a certain amount of faith though.

718

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

To play Devils Advocate, you could say that about almost anything historically couldn’t you? For example, how do we know Alexander the Great even existed? Show me 5 people who witnessed his feats. show me 1.

[/quote]

Yes, absolutely.

But, then, that a conquering king existed requires less proof, being as it is rather commonplace throughout history, than that a man walked atop the sea.[/quote]

True, but it still requires a certain amount of faith though. [/quote]

Dude, totally not equivalent/comparable.
No one is claiming Alexander as the son of God, and that he did supernatural things, unlike Jesus.

719

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

Careful, pat’s mind is sharper than the some of the best that Atheism has put forth (his statement not mine).
He’ll tear you to ribbons I say!

720

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, Pat, show me all of these contemporary accounts. Show me ten people who wrote in the time of Jesus to say what they had seen. Show me 5.[/quote]

To play Devils Advocate, you could say that about almost anything historically couldn’t you? For example, how do we know Alexander the Great even existed? Show me 5 people who witnessed his feats. show me 1.

[/quote]

Yes, absolutely.

But, then, that a conquering king existed requires less proof, being as it is rather commonplace throughout history, than that a man walked atop the sea.[/quote]

True, but it still requires a certain amount of faith though. [/quote]

Indeed, everything requires a certain amount of faith.

The thing is to figure out what we are, and what we are not, justified in believing.

It takes a far more evidence than there is to put “walking on water” in the former column.