are the gracies religious?

[Balto]

Thank you for being honest. So, if murder is wrong because God says it is wrong, then it would follow if he were to declare it right it would be right, yes?

Theoretically. But God has always said it was wrong, Old Testament and New. See the murder vs killing thing above for the warfare explanation.

So it's kind of an if my uncle was my aunt proposition. Yes, ultimately you need to do what God wants you to do. But God in the Bible has already said he is not changing moral laws. What he changed in the New Testament were ritualistic laws (like the dietary restrictions) and the ultimate penalty for breaking the moral laws. But Jesus was very clear that the moral laws still apply, and he summed them up with the Golden Rule.

 

[Hyperborean]

Theoretically. But God has always said it was wrong, Old Testament and New. See the murder vs killing thing above for the warfare explanation.

So it's kind of an if my uncle was my aunt proposition. Yes, ultimately you need to do what God wants you to do. But God in the Bible has already said he is not changing moral laws. What he changed in the New Testament were ritualistic laws (like the dietary restrictions) and the ultimate penalty for breaking the moral laws. But Jesus was very clear that the moral laws still apply, and he summed them up with the Golden Rule.

This is a theoretical example. So it does not matter what God has said in the past. Lets just follow the logic and exlude all sentimental examples. If God was to declare murder to be just or right, would it be so?

 

[Balto]

This is a theoretical example. So it does not matter what Gos has said in the past. Lets just follow the logic and exlude all sentimental examples. If God was to declare murder to be just or right, would it be so?

The problem is that you cannot go further logically because you are already contradicting the logical premises of Christian theology. So anything after the contradiction is invalid.

The premise you are violating is that God cannot be wrong. Since God is God, he is all good. There nothing about him that is wrong.

When God created humans, he created them in his image. That "in his image" is understood to mean writing his own personal moral laws on the hearts of humans. That is why we can be guilty of murder, but a tiger that eats us is not guilty of murder. Animals do not have this image of morality.

The reason God can relax his ritual laws is because they are not part of this image. People do not naturally intuit "don't eat pork" or "don't wear two fabrics together". These just have to be told. So God can then undo these things. These things are not in the image of God.

God does not relax his moral laws because the ability to figure out his moral laws on your own as a human is due to them being a part of his image. God cannot change himself from right to wrong, because then he would have had to have been wrong at some point in time. This is a logical contradiction with the premise that God can never be wrong.

So what you are asking is essentially like asking me to divide by zero in math. The real answer is undefined, i.e. don't proceed further because the result is nonsense.

If you wish to keep going though, just answer it both ways. But within the logical framework of Christian theology, I believe all answers proceeding are nonsense due to the contradiction.

 

[Hyperborean]

The problem is that you cannot go further logically because you are already contradicting the logical premises of Christian theology. So anything after the contradiction is invalid.

The premise you are violating is that God cannot be wrong. Since God is God, he is all good. There nothing about him that is wrong.

When God created humans, he created them in his image. That "in his image" is understood to mean writing his own personal moral laws on the hearts of humans. That is why we can be guilty of murder, but a tiger that eats us is not guilty of murder. Animals do not have this image of morality.

The reason God can relax his ritual laws is because they are not part of this image. People do not naturally intuit "don't eat pork" or "don't wear two fabrics together". These just have to be told. So God can then undo these things. These things are not in the image of God.

God does not relax his moral laws because the ability to figure out his moral laws on your own as a human is due to them being a part of his image. God cannot change himself from right to wrong, because then he would have had to have been wrong at some point in time. This is a logical contradiction with the premise that God can never be wrong.

So what you are asking is essentially like asking me to divide by zero in math. The real answer is undefined, i.e. don't proceed further because the result is nonsense.

If you wish to keep going though, just answer it both ways. But within the logical framework of Christian theology, I believe all answers proceeding are nonsense due to the contradiction.

No no no no, you have already answered my question, you said murder was wrong because God says it is wrong. I just wanted clear confirmation, why are you hesitating to confirm this position (which is all I was asking for). You cannot know what the position of God is, can you? Again this is a hypotetical question, if he were to declare murder to be right, would it be so? This is a clear yes or no question. (and you know it, but you also know that you are opening a can of worms if you answer it honestly so you hesitate... No?)

 

[Balto]

No no no no, you have already answered my question, you said murder was wrong because God says it is wrong. I just wanted clear confirmation, why are you hesitating to confirm this position (which is all I was asking for). You cannot know what the position of God is, can you? Again this is a hypotetical question, if he were to declare muder to be right, would it be so? This is a clear yes or no question. (and you know it, but you also know that you are opening a can of worms if you answer it honestly so you hesitate... No?)

The whole idea of Christianity and the Bible is that yes, we know what the position of God is. He instilled it in us naturally when he created humans, and he then explicitly tells us his position throughout history. We believe we know his position.

I am fine with you finishing out your argument, for curiosity if nothing else. I am just saying do it both ways because there is no answer, and both conclusions will ultimately be invalid even if intellectually interesting.

 

[Hyperborean]

And once we are done with this, I will give you my position
on the subject. ( And you are free to rip it apart, and I will acknowledge if you do so, defeating my reasoning)

 

[Balto]

And once we are done with this, I will give you my position
on the subject. ( And you are free to rip it apart, and I will acknowledge if you do so, defeating my reasoning)

Sure. I am interested to read it.

I doubt I will defeat your reasoning. You have not been making fallacies so far.

Most likely we will just disagree on the premises again.

 

[Hyperborean]

The whole idea of Christianity and the Bible is that yes, we know what the position of God is. He instilled it in us naturally when he created humans, and he then explicitly tells us his position throughout history. We believe we know his position.

I am fine with you finishing out your argument, for curiosity if nothing else. I am just saying do it both ways because there is no answer, and both conclusions will ultimately be invalid even if intellectually interesting.

No! How can there be no answer to a clear yes or no question. Either murder if wrong becuase murder is always wrong regardless of god, or murder is wrong because God declares murder to be wrong. There are only these two positions to be had if there is an objective morality declaring murder to be wrong. You have to pick a position here... (or acknowledge that there is no such thing as objective morality)

 

[Hyperborean]

Sure. I am interested to read it.

I doubt I will defeat your reasoning. You have not been making fallacies so far.

Most likely we will just disagree on the premises again.

Well, if we just get down to the premises, so be it. There is a point to that to. And so far I will gladly admit I respect you for the way you have conducted yourself and for following logic where it takes you.

 

[Balto]

No! How can there be no answer to a clear yes or no question. Either murder if wrong becuase murder is always wrong regardless of god, or murder is wrong because God declares murder to be wrong. There are only these two positions to be had if there is an objective morality declaring murder to be wrong. You have to pick a position here... (or acknowledge that there is no such thing as objective morality)

There can be clear statements with no value in regular logic.

Here's an example:

"This statement is false."

It can't be true, because if it were true you would have to accept what was inside of it. And what is inside of it requires that it be false.

It can't be false, because then you would reject what is inside of it. But what is inside of it is that it is false, what you just rejected.

It's the same thing as math. How can there be no answer to a clear division problem? I am dividing a into b, what is the answer? If a is allowed to be zero, any result from that is invalid.

The Christian position is that there is an objective morality. It comes from God, and it also exists inside of us because God created us in that image. And saying that God is capable of going against his own image violates the fundamental premises of Christian theology (and most other theologies as I understand them).

 

[Hyperborean]

There can be clear statements with no value in regular logic.

Here's an example:

"This statement is false."

It can't be true, because if it were true you would have to accept what was inside of it. And what is inside of it requires that it be false.

It can't be false, because then you would reject what is inside of it. But what is inside of it is that it is false, what you just rejected.

It's the same thing as math. How can there be no answer to a clear division problem? I am dividing a into b, what is the answer? If a is allowed to be zero, any result from that is invalid.

The Christian position is that there is an objective morality. It comes from God, and it also exists inside of us because God created us in that image. And saying that God is capable of going against his own image violates the fundamental premises of Christian theology (and most other theologies as I understand them).

But this question really isn

 

[Balto]

But this question really isn

 

[Hyperborean]

Hyperborean:



Can you scientifically prove that murder is wrong? No, you cannot. I have had people try to argue that you can before with me, but the argument will just have to stop there then because that is plainly not true. You cannot empirically prove with repeatable, measurable, experiments that murder is "wrong". So at that point, you are basing a core belief on moral philosophy, not science.

/QUOTE]

Well it would somewhat depend on the context. But in a natural state ala Hobbes, then no, murder is not wrong. It is just an occurence among others. There is no objective morality that would deem it wrong. Just like it is not wrong, in that sense, for a wolf to kill and feed off of a lamb.

But in a societal context it could be deemed wrong. Beacause murder violates the social contract between men that is paramount for having a functional society. Hobbes, Locke and Rosseau would agree, even if their versions of society would differ. And if we forego the philosophical sphere and go into the empirical realm it would probably be possible to prove that murder (within the context) is detrimental to a society (but this would of course be hingent on some presuppositions, such as, life is preferable to death, health is preferable to sickness etc, I will admit this) but I really don

 

[Hyperborean]

The question is not exactly like that because it does not violate fundamental logic. It just violates a premise of theology. I just picked that question to show that it's not a special trick, and it does occur with certain premises.

The theological premise is that God cannot go against his own nature. Even though he is omnipotent, he cannot go against himself because he himself is omnipotent. Who wins between two omnipotent things? If one wins out, the other was by definition not omnipotent. It just creates a can of worms, the same way that if I can divide by zero, I can "prove" that 0 = 1. So it is just disallowed as causing an invalid result the same as dividing by zero is allowed.

I agree the question is not ambiguous, but there is no side to choose any more than there is a truth value to assign to the invalid statement I made previously.

The reason this argument is getting more complicated is because previously we were not really getting into theology. It was more me just proving that there is a whole argument that Christians can use to believe that is more intellectually mature than "Well my mom told me Jesus was real so that's what I believe."

With these theological arguments, Christian scholars have debated and written about these for 1700 years at least (they didn't do as much scholarly writing while they were being persecuted). There is a whole one over free will vs predestination. There is even a whole subset of theology called Christology. It is purely concerned with the exact nature of Jesus as both God and man.

On any of these trickier topics, you will literally found thousands (millions?) of pages of scholarly discourse written throughout history trying to answer them exactly. They have occupied a lot of clock cycles in human brains.

but God not going agianst his own nature... Would that really hinder a hypothetical question? ( One that you actually answered before getting cold feet)? And if it does mean that, would you not have to understand the nature of God to deem what would go against his nature? ( And if you do, then would that not mean that any argument of the kind of "Gods ways are mysterious and not understandable by man" goes out the window?

And I do have a problem with accepting that a simple yes an no question (that is mutually exclusive) can not be answered. In this case it is you and I having a debate, I don

 

[Balto]

And if we forego the philosophical sphere and go into the empirical realm it would probably be possible to prove that murder (within the context) is detrimental to a society (but this would of course be hingent on some presuppositions, such as, life is preferable to death, health is preferable to sickness etc, I will admit this)

This is why it cannot be answered empirically though. Those presuppositions are not allowed by the scientific method. Because you can't empirically show that life is preferable to death (what about suicidal people?), it's not scientific at that point.

Your philosophy on the social contract I think is solid. Yes, I believe that those philosophers would agree with what you said from what I remember.

 

[Balto]

But this question really isn

 

[Balto]

And if it does mean that, would you not have to understand the nature of God to deem what would go against his nature? ( And if you do, then would that not mean that any argument of the kind of "Gods ways are mysterious and not understandable by man" goes out the window?

We understand God's nature because we were created in his image. Also he has told us his nature.

The fact that he also does things we can't understand is also part of his nature. That is not very weird at all. This happens even with humans. Humans do things that we don't understand sometimes too. It's just on a smaller scale.

Ever have your BJJ instructor show you something, and you didn't really understand what the point was at first? Then at some later time, ohhh now you understand. It all makes sense in the end.

That's the same as it is with God. Except God's plan is just way bigger than we can ever comprehend in a human lifetime. But the idea is that when we go to heaven, we get to understand the whole plan and see that it is good.

 

[Balto]

Just to close things by answering that question I quoted above:

God himself is the foundation for moral objectivity. He then declares the truth from there, but if you are looking for the order of operations, God himself is the ultimate foundation first.

The theologically impossible part is when you ask for an answer as to what happens when God changes himself, thus changing his answers on moral questions. The reason I can't answer yes or no is because such a thing is impossible by the theological definition of God. God does not change himself. He just is, was, and always will be. He was not even created. He just exists.

It is also impossible for God to keep his moral nature the same but declare something to be true other than his nature. Then God would be lying to himself. Again, this can't happen in the theological framework.

 

[DiegoLunes]

also I don't think you understand how free speech works, you have the right to believe something and I have the right to tell you its dumb.

That's called being a douche.

 

[FinBJJ]

A surprising amount of people here actually believe in imaginary characters and desperately try to convince others it isn't ridiculous.