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Kasz216 on 05 July 2011
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sapphi_snake said:
Kasz216 said:

A) Man isn't inherently good... that's an opinion... and a rather pointless one when it comes to the conversation.

B) Are people who don't believe in god "bad".    No.  that's certaintly a leap of faith.

C1) I never said it was good because it was something god asks.  It's good because, it's good, you disagree that thinking about others before yourself is good.

C2) Actually, you can say something is good because god asks it.  It's not lazy so much as it is logical.  If there is one ominipotent creation god, it stands to reason that he created everything and that includes abstract concepts such as good and evil.  An all creator god could decide that raping children is good, and we would disagree, and he would be right because he is the one who has control over reality, created reality this way and holds complete knowledge of everything.

To think otherwise is to hold the logical fallacy that you are the center of the universe and the one who gets to define these abstract qualities. This is something to keep in mind even if you don't believe in an all powerful creator god as it general shows where a lot of fallacies, ignorance and stubborness comes from.  Someone placing themselves as the center of the universe.  This may be a problem you yourself are facing... afterall, look back at A.  You simply said man isn't inherently good, rather then think from the mindset that man is inherently good.  Which if you did would make the whole thing eaisly understandable.

It would be illogical to suggest that an ominpotent creation god WOULDN'T always be right.

Hence why arguements around religious literature among believers tend to focus on the trasnlation, interpretation and possibility of it being faked.

D) So in your opinion, timetravel negates the purpose of life?  Or are you talking about the Christian sense of choosing correctly?  Either way I can't see how.  That's like saying that reading the end of a book negates the point of reading the book.

A) Man is inherently good... also pointless.

C1) "It's good because, it's good"? Really? Using tautologies now?

C2) But humans are the center of the universe (our universe), and we are the ones who define abstract qualities. The reason why I reject the notion that man is inherently good, is simply because it's not verifiable, and quite frankly, disproven by real life experience. I'm quite capable of empathy, more so than most people, but I refuse to empathise with religious people.

The ideea is that an omnipotent, onmiprezent, omni-whatever god could create a universe, create all kinds of rules etc., however we are not mindless robots programed to act a certain way. We have the capability to think independently, interpret the world as we see fit, and this quite fraknly leads us often to find that the rules of the god are actually in contradiction with what we define as good for ourselves. At the end of the day "omnipotence", "all-knowing" are just impossible qualities that dictators attribut to themselves to justify their rule, and no one does it better than the "supreme dictator". These attributes are often extended to more earthly dictators, and I find this concept scary and dangerous, hence why I won't even liste nto such nonsense.

D) In my opinion, god knowing who will be "saved" and who will not, before these people even commit the respective actions kinda negates the whole purpose of life (according to Christians it's salvation, proving to god that you deserve to go to heaven, something that's obvioulsy pointless if god already knows who is gonna "be good" and go to heaven, and who is not even before the respective people are born).

A) No it isn't.  Man is inherently good is a basis of Christian belief and must be taken as true when consdiering whether or not said statement is cotnradictory in the belief system.

C1) It's not a tautology.  Or do you disagree that helping others is good moraly?

C2) Again, this is all your opinion and irrelevent to the topic at hand and an attempt to retreat off the topic at hand to a arguemenatitive highground where you try to insert your own Dogma over the existing one to force flaws.  

This was afterall an analysis over what he said, and whether or not it was contradictory when concerning Christian Dogma. Your own personal beliefs are irrelevent.  To study whether it's contraditory or not one must accept the viewpoints as true and see if a contradiction happens when thinking as they do.

If you lack the critical thinking skills to do so, and decide to only look at anything ever through your own point of view, you won't see ANYTHING as ever being valid outside of your own beliefs... which is much more the cause of the problems and dictatorships that you complain about.

To Judge this you need to use Immanent Crique.  To explain it via a Wikipedia quote...

According to David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY), "Critical theory at its most abstract and general level ... begins as a formal 'negativity.' As a dissenting motif, it selects some tradition, ideological premise, or institutionalized orthodoxy for analysis. As immanent critique, it then 'enters its object,' so to speak, 'boring from within.' Provisionally accepting the methodological presuppositions, substantive premises, and truth-claims of orthodoxy as its own, immanent critique tests the postulates of orthodoxy by the latter's own standards of proof and accuracy. Upon 'entering' the theory, orthodoxy's premises and assertions are registered and certain strategic contradictions located. These contradictions are then developed according to their own logic, and at some point in this process of internal expansion, the one-sided proclamations of orthodoxy collapse as material instances and their contradictions are allowed to develop 'naturally.'"


Therefore whether or not an Omnipotent god exists or not, it is irrelevent to the topic at hand.  In general your opinions or mine on dogma or reality are irrelevent.  All that is irrelevent is the general beliefs attributed to the statement.

 

D) If that's the case, then why as an atheist decide to live?  You are taking a very nihlistic view of life in such a case.  Aside from which, you aren't learning or living or growing then.