Atheists Who Celebrate All The Good That God Causes.

Sorry I had just watched this.. but yes. when i'm in a hurry and changing how I phrase things i tend to miss stuff..




but yes. when i'm in a hurry and changing how I phrase things i tend to miss stuff..

 

LOL - I certainly understand.


BTW - Can you imagine Trump doing self deprecating comedy before the press club like has been a tradition for decades?

 

yep, wonder if after you fired him, and he had no money if his church no longer cared about him

 

Or shuud eye just say non seqwiter?

 

When you remove the religious dogma what you end up with are just people engaging in wishful thinking and self delusion about what happens after they die.

Just because billions of others share these self delusions does not alter the fact that there is zero factual evidence of any "afterlife" just as there is zero factual evidence of any imaginary "creator" either.

On the positive side the rejection of religious dogma is growing faster than ever before worldwide.

 

I'm not a fan of Wittgenstein. I don't care much about philosophy, but I'm aware it's unavoidable. Human beings feel the need to organize, categorize, classify, and explain the world around them and the world within. Philosophy is one of the tools we use.

This passage may seem simple to you, but it contains a whole world and its mother-in-law...taking into account the historical, religious, and cultural context of the times, of course.

Every Christian I ever talked to about religion is completely oblivious to the simple fact that the Christian doctrines of today are the result of tens of thousands of incessant evolution and syncretism on all plans of human existence - social, cultural, economic, religious, political. Christianity wasn't bestowed upon humans in a spiritual vacuum. Interpreting the religious texts was never a simple task.

Well, that's one way to understand the text.

People make choices every day, that doesn't mean the will is free. Only neurosciences and psychology can clarify this matter, me thinks.

Too bad humans don't love this world as much as your God does.

 

Moral values can be defined as relationships between states of affairs and desires, says one theory (desirism). Cold-blooded murder run counter to basic human desires, therefore it engenders a bad relationship, a bad moral value. There's no culture in which normative members of a society are allowed to murder each other at will (I specified "normative", because some societies allow killing certain persons in certain circumstances).

Relationships between states of affairs and desires are not opinions, but facts. Desires and states of affairs may differ greatly in different cultures, hence their relationships - moral values - are also different. That's why it's very hard to answer questions about morality, unless a certain context is specified.

Murder for money gain might be immoral in one context, and moral in another. Can we say that mercenaries in the French Legion are immoral?

 

Then why is the OP phrased specifically with respect to statements made by atheists? Your first question in the OP is along the lines of

Some of these Atheists say that:
God put the COVID-19 virus upon the human race
So?
(source)​

If you want to know "so what?", if you want to know the conclusions that these atheists draw from their premises, you will have to take into account the point they're making.

As I read your opening post, the thesis of the post seems to be

Let us celebrate all the good that God does "if God does exist."
(source)​

This seems to me to make a judgement of what we are justified in celebrating, and I think atheists who list atrocities make a better point on that topic.

We do not celebrate criminals for the thousands of crimes they did not commit, we lock them up in response to the crime they did commit. A court (concerned with how we're justified in treating the criminal) would agree, a newspaper (concerned with what image the public will have) would agree.

Fry even goes on to say (in the same interview, source):

Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects[...]​

The acknowledgement that the world is splendid seems to me to show that Fry is not unaware of the good things that God has supposedly done, he is making the point that in order to warrant celebration, it is not enough to have done good things, if one also has done bad things (at least to the level of God).

I don't see anything conclusive on that topic spelled out in the OP. As I've mentioned, there is an unexplained gap between the premise "God has done good and bad things" and the conclusion "therefore God is both good and evil" (or possibly to "we should celebrate those things"). Fry, for instance, would not agree, he would (and does) say that if you're omnipotent and omniscient and you make the decision to create bone cancer in children, you have now passed into evil, the good things that you might have done does not excuse you.

I'm not exactly sure in what way the differences are important. You suggest that "the Opening Post presents the God of the Bible as being both evil and good?" but not that "I agree that the God of the Bible is evil, or both evil and good". The distinction seems to be what is being presented and what you actually believe, which I don't think is an issue, I don't think I have addressed what you believe, as much as what has been presented.

It is unclear which of the steps in Fry's "bone cancer -> God has done evil things -> God is evil -> God is not worthy of celebration" you disagree with, but the OP does seem to explicitly disagree with the conclusion.

I find it very interesting, and the questions and topics you post are far more interesting, intelligent and well phrased than the majority of posts on the forum.

So is the path to any belief, no matter how false. The intellect can at least approach ruling out incorrect answers. It is not perfect, but it beats faith on walk over. If you build buildings with your heart instead of your intellect, they will fall down a lot. If you play cards with your heart instead of your intellect, you will lose more often than not. And if you win, it will be due to luck more than faith. Why is it suddenly lauded within Christianity?

As with the distinction of what you believe and what you put in the post, I think the same is true here. None of my arguments explicitly have to do with what I believe. I'm trying to mesh what you're saying with the statements, arguments and beliefs of the atheists you quote, not with mine.

That being said, in order not to leave a question unanswered, I can't off the top of my head think of a situation where I would pick {2} here. Since you haven't a "please others" or "please some aspect of humanity", I guess I'm stuck with {1} then.

Well, using what "Christianity teaches" is not a good way to figure out whether what Christianity teaches is true. That would be circular reasoning, as is particularly well illustrated by the fact that people now and through history has used similar logic and come up with contradictory and often demonstrably false beliefs.

You seem to be skipping between arguments. This argument was specifically about faith as a concept. Reasonable faith seems more concerned with indications of Christianity outside of faith. I'm not so familiar with Copan, but his wiki page seems to suggest that he believes that a mere reference to faith is not enough, but that in the debate between Christianity and non-Christians, we should rely on things we can agree on, such as reason. As such, it doesn't seem to be a good champion for faith alone.

 

Ohh. B.S. that is THE way to interpret that text.. what it says in what it means.

The main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things.

Peter had the Holy Spirit come upon him. He gave a sermon to gathered jews from various nations. And gave the above passage.

The most interesting part of the passage to me is the fact that these people saw Jesus, they saw the miracles He performed. They had all the proof in the world that He was worthy of their faith, and still they did not believe.

Evidence of God's existence does not cause people to believe in Him.

The idea that anyone could provide such evidence now in order to get people to believe in God is utterly absurd. People don't choose unbelief because of a lack of evidence but because of sin.

The bible is simple to understand. The context of culture in most cases only provides a richer understanding.

 

But they will eventually come to the place where they will
love God's world with intense passion.

Here are two passages that present pleasant cheerful food
for thought:

{1) Postmillennialism means that eventually Christendom
Christianizes the world. I hold the Postmillennial view of
Christian Eschatology. It is bright, cheerful, totally optimistic,
and full of faith and hope for humanity. The human race, as
a race, will be salvaged {saved.}

"Postmillennialism holds that the Lord Jesus Christ established His
kingdom on earth through His preaching and redemptive work in the
first century and that He equips His church with the gospel, empowers
her by the Holy Spirit, and charges her with the Great Commission to
disciple all nations. Postmillennialism expects that eventually the vast
majority of men living will be saved. Increasing gospel success will
gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ's return in which faith,
righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men
and nations. After an extensive era of such conditions the Lord will
return visibly, bodily, and gloriously, to end history with the general
resurrection and the final Judgment after which the eternal order
follows."__Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry.

{2} Here is how human history ends:
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying "Look! God's
dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with
them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them
and be their God. 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There
will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old
order of things has passed away."___Revelation 21:3-4

All is well that ends well.

By the way, the prefix "post" in Postmillennialism means that
the Lord Jesus will return to Earth AFTER the millennial which
is, on my view, figurative language for a very very long time yet
ahead for humanity. Christians will eventually come to number in
the hundreds and hundreds of billions, and become as numerous
as the "stars in the sky" and the grains of sand on the seashore.

It can be interesting to be introduced to some new ideas, yes?

No reply necessary, but feel free if so inclined .


`. .

 

I think I do take that into account. My understanding of the
point they are making is that the God of the Bible is evil
because He has done at least one evil act {eg put bone
cancer in children} and that one evil act makes Him evil
even though He has also done a lot of good things.

Nonetheless . . .

I believe my Opening Post ought to compel them to
agree that, even though, they believe that God is evil,
they now, at the very least, MUST agree that the God
of the Bible did in fact do a HUGE amount of good
things also.

Again, why make that point? Answer: Because I found
the point interesting. I wanted to make that point.

By the way, I believe that all the evil in the world and all
the natural disasters in the world were caused by human
Free Will that chose to Sin and plunged the world into
chaos. This is a faith belief. I'm well aware of that.
I'm a Christian. Christianity is a faith.

The Opening Post does not challenge that.
{Not that I personally agree with them. I don't.}

The Opening Post does not attempt to excuse God.
The Opening Post allows atheists to believe God to be both
good and evil.
{Though I do not agree that he is evil. Human Free Will.}

So what do I want?

I want God to be credited with these good things also.

JAG Wrote:
"So if God is Omnipotent and CONTROLS and CAUSES . . .ALL . . things,
therefore all the hundreds of millions of acts of kindness that occur worldwide
every year are caused by God --- and everything else that is a good thing.
`
I ask these God-Causes-All-Things Atheists to join me in listing the good
things God causes, along with the bad things they say He causes.
`
God either causes all things, or He does not cause all things.
`
If He causes all things, then God:
`
■ caused Polio to be cured.

■ caused all the love in the world

■ caused all the kindness in the world

■ caused all the empathy in the world

■ caused all the sympathy in the world

■ caused all the hospitals in the world to be built

■ caused all the charities in the world to come to exist

■ caused all the homes of people to be built

■ caused the Center For Disease Control to come to exist

■ caused the World Health Organization to come to exist

■ caused all the Super Walmart Stores and Sam's Clubs to come to exist

■ and caused every single thing that is a good thing, to come to exist"___JAG
End quote.

Thank you Swensson -- much appreciated.
I enjoy reading your posts. I think you write well and make
interesting points.

Later . .



`.

 

That is correct. William Lane Craig puts a lot of emphasis on
logic and empiricism. Nonetheless the following is from Graig's
major work Reasonable Faith: (you may have read this before,
but no harm in taking another look at it}

Start quote.
"Henry Dodwell argues that matters of religious faith lie outside the determination
of reason. God could not possibly have intended that reason should be the faculty
to lead us to faith, for faith cannot hang indefinitely is suspense while reason
cautiously weighs and reweighs arguments.

`The Scriptures teach, on the contrary, that the way to God is by means of the heart,
not by means of the intellect . . .(What is the basis of faith? Dodwell answers that it
is) the faith-producing work of the Holy Spirit . . .

Now Alvin Plantinga . . .

Alvin Plantinga has launched a sustained attack on theological rationalism. Plantinga
maintains that belief in God and in the central doctrines of Christianity is both rational
and warranted wholly apart from any evidential foundations for belief . . .

Then William Lane Craig says . . .

I think that Dodwell and Plantinga are correct that, fundamentally, the way we know
Christianity to be true is by the self-authenticating witness of God's Holy Spirit."
End quote

Source:
Reasonable Faith
by William Lane Craig
pages 35, 39, 43

Agreed. Paul Copan, like William Lane Craig, is a
Christian Apologist who puts a lot of emphasis on
logic and rational argumentation.

____________

Swensson,

I personally tend to agree with Henry Dodwell, Alvin
Plantinga, and William Lane Craig up-post on what
they said. So now you're "scratching your head" right?
I mean you're asking, "Which is it? Is it Faith or is it
Reason? Answer; It is BOTH Faith and Reason.

It is NOT
"either . . or"
rather it is
"both . . and"

Both FAITH and REASON.

So how does that work?
Answer: We're back to arguments in support of the truth of
Christianity that do not rise to the certainty-level of 2 + 2 = 4
--- but rather must be graded on the levels of Probability and
Plausibility. Here there is human subjectivity --there is not
certainty-- and where there is not certainty, there is going to
be at least some faith involved -- if you reach a conclusion about
any issue.




`

 

Christendom is HUGE --- some 2.3 billion Christians in the world.
There is room for a lot of different views that do not harmonize.

Some Christian Apologist put more emphasis on Logic and
Reason that do other Christian Apologists. If you ever buy
William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith you will find it packed
with rational evidences. Yet Craig has an opening chapter
titled How Do I Know Christianity Is True? And he answers
with the following:

Start quote.
"Henry Dodwell argues that matters of religious faith lie outside the determination
of reason. God could not possibly have intended that reason should be the faculty
to lead us to faith, for faith cannot hang indefinitely is suspense while reason
cautiously weighs and reweighs arguments.

`The Scriptures teach, on the contrary, that the way to God is by means of the heart,
not by means of the intellect . . .(What is the basis of faith? Dodwell answers that it
is) the faith-producing work of the Holy Spirit . . .

Now Alvin Plantinga . . .

Alvin Plantinga has launched a sustained attack on theological rationalism. Plantinga
maintains that belief in God and in the central doctrines of Christianity is both rational
and warranted wholly apart from any evidential foundations for belief . . .

Then William Lane Craig says . . .

I think that Dodwell and Plantinga are correct that, fundamentally, the way we know
Christianity to be true is by the self-authenticating witness of God's Holy Spirit."
End quote

Source:
Reasonable Faith
by William Lane Craig
pages 35, 39, 43

_____________________


Now "Double warrant" . . .

After saying all that up-post, then Craig proceeds to present an
enormous amount of Logical and very Rational arguments for
the existence of God and the truth of Christianity.

How does Craig reconcile the seemingly contradictory "tug of war"
between Faith and Reason? The answer is "double warrant."

Craig says the Christian has 2 sources of warrant to believe.
{1} Faith {as Dodwell, Plantinga, and Craig explain up-post.}
and . . .
{2} Logical Arguments as Craig and Copan and Plantinga present
in their published works on Christian Apologetics.


`

 

Either way he created an earth that is so unstable that thousands of his 'creation' are killed every year by earthquakes, floods etc. Then he says 'Thou shalt not kill'.

 

Exactly, De … there are still no credible reasons to believe that it's anything more than wishful thinking and self delusion.

Just cuz billions of people (or perhaps I should say sheeple) believe something doesn't mean jack

There was a time when pretty much everyone thought the earth was flat … or the time when everyone thought the sun revolved around the earth. lol

 

Great point, trev

 

"but it contains a whole world and its mother-in-law"___Pisa

Cool phrase there. I like that. You're a wordsmith.

"Oblivious"___Pisa

"Interpreting the religious texts was never a simple tasks."__Pisa

True that "social, cultural, economic, religious, {and} political"
elements all went into the creation of the finished product of
2 Timothy 3:16-17.

However . . .

The "social, cultural, economic, religious, {and} political" elements
do not make complicated "For God so loved the world that He gave
His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish
but have eternal life." Voltaire made it complicated. So did Bertrand
Russell. But the Lord Jesus never made it hard to understand.

Just curious . .

. What do you find complicated about this ?

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he
was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through
his poverty might become rich."__2 Corinthians 8:9



`

 

This is correct.
No better illustration of its correctness can be found than in John chapters 11 and 12
where the death of Lazarus occurred and where the Lord Jesus raised him from the
dead. There were many people there and they saw Lazarus who had been dead for
4 days raised from the dead by the Lord Jesus.

Lazarus-now-alive was the Logical, Empirical, Rational Evidence for the
truth of Christianity.

So?

So what did those people do then?

Answer:
That plotted first to kill the Lord Jesus who had provided the Lazarus-now-alive
solid Logical, Rational, Empirical evidence. John 11:53

Next they plotted to kill the evidence itself which was Lazarus-very-much-alive who
had been dead for 4 days. John 12:10



`

 

Pisa,

My view is that it is impossible to make a reasonable argument
demonstrating that the mercenaries who fight in the French Foreign
Legion are murderers because they are mercenaries and presumably
fight because they are paid to fight and not for patriotic motives --
any more than any other soldiers can be said to be murderers.

Back to murder -for-money-gain . . .

Just curious. Do you believe proclamations that say murder for money-gain
is wrong-immoral are no more than mere human opinions?

Or do you believe proclamations that say murder for money-gain can
be logically demonstrated to rise above mere human opinion?

Can you give me one {1} reason why murder for money-gain is
wrong-immoral that rises above mere human opinion?

____________

I raise those questions again just in case in you are interested in
them. If you are not interested in them, please feel free to ignore
them -- I am not pressing you for an answer.



`

 

The empires of the great religions came and went, but their gods are still with us.

Mere power and force is not sustainable. Take the Mongols, who conquered the Middle East and Eurasia. They didn’t leave much in their path except death and destruction, and eventually lost everything that they had ruled over.

More so, they ended up converting to Islam.

There’s no point. Remember, we’re talking about ideas. If someone is going to believe in a concept that is defined as being Perfect, Absolute, and Eternal; what possible alternative to that concept can you offer that is superior to it?

 

Convert or kill grows religions, time weakens them

may take many generations, but time will weaken them all eventually

of course the new is often built on top of the old, so there will be replacement religions for people to believe in

 

I do not claim to speak for all atheists, but to the best of my knowledge, many of the atheists in question would agree with that. As I mentioned, Fry does acknowledge that in a throwaway comment.

That being said, it becomes a bit of a moot point, since they are allowing the conditional "if God created the universe" specifically in order to make an argument of evil. If we relieve ourselves of the idea that evil acts makes God evil, and that we should consider whether any of the acts are evil, then we relieve ourselves of the idea that atheists should consider a world in which God exists. You can construct your own hypothetical if you want to, but I don't see that you can expect atheists to pay any particular mind to that hypothetical.

There are ideas in your post that I think are much more important for the topic at hand than whether God made splendid things. You suggest considering God as both good and evil, it is not clear to me that that's either possible or plausible. I am not in the habit of labelling things good or evil, but it strikes me as meaningless or misguiding to apply both. The last time you thought about someone you didn't like, did you take the time to list their good qualities? Regardless, how does "both good and evil" compare to omnibenevolence? It would seem to me if there are bits that are evil, omnibenevolence is still out. At the very least, that issue would have to be clarified before it would be reasonable for these particular atheists to apply some half-and-half label.

 

Again, this seems beside the point. The question you responded to was specifically about the faith itself, outside of rational argumentation. However, your responses have all been about people trying to use rational argumentation, and for Christianity in particular.

I'm not convinced by the faith-aided reason approach. I think that leads us particularly open to the fallacy of circular reasoning. It also leads us to confusing likelihood with plausibility. Plantinga's shows that a solution is possible, not that the solution is probable or practically likely.

 

I think this is an example of circular reasoning caused by faith. The idea that "God could not possibly have intended that reason should be the faculty to lead us to faith" is only plausible if you've already used your faith to presuppose the existence of a particular kind of God. If we don't make that assumption, Dodwell's argument becomes unsustained, and Craig's continuation with it. The arguments only work if you've arrived at Christianity through some other method, just like there are similar arguments that would prove God's nonexistence or Islam or the Greek Pantheon if you presupposed them.

There is a fundamental problem with allowing a world-view's own principles to be used to show that the world-view is true.

The result is that the combination of reason and faith is not a double warrant, it is a double liability. If the faith fails, then the reasoning fails as well. And so, while you've added some reasoning on top of the faith, the belief falls and stands with the faith alone. And at that point, we still have no reason to believe that faith tells us anything true.

 

As I already said, faith - belief in one or more gods - is not debatable. I can't argue with you about your faith.

I wouldn't care about the rest of the Christian beliefs, if not for the claim that events described by the canonical texts really happened in certain places on Earth, in certain periods of time, involving a great number of people who really lived there and then. Furthermore, these texts have had throughout history a huge impact on lives of non-Christians. Still do today. Therefore I'm entitled to argue about the veracity of such events, interpretations of the texts, and the real roots of Christianity.

That being said, in the hope that you'll understand my points, I'll tell you what my interpretations of that passage is. Let's remember what the passage says:
This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

The above tells me that whoever wrote this passage didn't believe in the divinity of Jesus. For the author, Jesus was a man. There are traces of the bitter polemics about the real nature of Jesus in other parts of the New Testament as well, and in the writings of Church Fathers.