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If God doesn't exist...
shanyin
Novice YoginSault Ontario Veteran
God isgreat and so on.. "So then I think it's evident then that if God exists, we have a foundation for moral values and duties. Secondly I argued that if God does not exist, we have no foundation for objective moral values or objective moral duties."
Just a thought it sounds like in his mind belief transforms reality.
It was sort of amusing that I don't think Sam tackled the argument head on.
Anways, just wanted to ask what your thoughts are about it. You know, if you disagree, why or visa versa, or what you'd say to him.
Or whta you think the Buddha would say.
good night all.
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It's very late! Just thought it was an argument that I am sure a few (and there are few) Christian friends would sort of get behind or something like that.
It's very late, hard to communicate!! lol
good night.
Yeah, I participated in a debate on the subject at the University of Tampa one year.
I think that easy-peasy Voltage, but Please correct me if I'm wrong....
He likewise said that
"it should be no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once."
That would be no suprise coming from someone who invests their faith in god as the law giver. People with more wisdom realize however that morales come through the force of empathatic reasoning and to those who observe more closely the nature of phenomena extra weight is added to this by actions and their effects so as to create a structure of right though, speech and deed.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Interesting stuff.
He says if God exists, then that is an objective foundation for moral values. No. If God exists, that places all moral values as entirely subjective on whatever behavior the God demands. In fact, it is the exact opposite of an objective moral value system.
I had to finally turn the sound off when he mentions the genital mutilation of girls as obviously objectively wrong in any situation, whether or not God exists, completely oblivious to the irony of the Bible God demanding genital mutilation of boys in the name of God. The man uses the Jewish Holocaust as an example of an objective moral evil by any standard, God or not, when the Bible again has examples of God ordering entire cities to be slaughtered, man, woman, child, babies, and even livestock, and it was considered not only moral, but failing to kill those innocent babies was disobeying God and punished.
Because if God's will is the measure of morality, then all morality can be summed up as: obey God's commands, no matter how cruel. In fact, God will command you to do cruel things just to test your obedience, if history is any indication.
Reality: Using God as a moral compass means immoral is disobeying God, no matter how cruel and terrible the commands might be. Again, all you have to do is look at history and even what's happening today in the world. Whatever imaginary world this man lives in, it certainly fails the test of reality. His blindness to the faults in his own logic is breathtaking.
He goes on to claim that using God as a reference point for morality makes morality independent of human beings, but that's also patent nonsense. Whose God, and which Prophet should the world use as the reference point? If two cultures claim to know God's will, who gets to decide which set of moral laws is the real one? All it does is give human beings an excuse to ignore objective morality that uses yardsticks like kindness and helping each other in favor of obeying a hidden God's commands. That's hardly making morality independent of human beings.
Anyway, I'll try to sit through the rest of it, but no promises.
Whoops I meant to say start at
1:50:00
Food for thought.