Secular Nativity

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Now you are moving the goal posts. You claimed God made us morally perfect but now you are just claiming he made us with a perfect record, which is trivially true since we are all born with no record at all (ignoring the original sin nonsense).

We are still left with God creating us and then punishing us for behaving as he designed.

We cannot ignore the responsibility our forebears have for our moral environment.
Again this half truth that we are all going to hell because we are being punished for being created evil.

[jeremyp]

We cannot ignore the responsibility our forebears have for our moral environment.

But we had no control over what our forebears did. So why blame us for it?

Again this half truth that we are all going to hell because we are being punished for being created evil.

Got it: you are saying that Christianity deals in half truths. Tell me again why I should believe any of it?

[Nearly Sane]

That is my claim, since I made it. Yes...man was perfectly moral and a being. Because determinism would predetermine the committing of evil making the determinant evil itself. You are suggesting that to be evil you have to be evil.
My definition of evil is to be against God. Man is initially for God.

I'm not defining evil. I'm using your definition.  You said 'man' was a perfect moral being, and that 'man' choose to act in what you see as an evil manner. These 2 claims are logically contradictory.

[SteveH]

That makes no sense whatsoever - surely though in order to move from a state of being 'perfect' to a state of being "alienated from God" (is this 'imperfection'?) they make a choice which is immoral, which is surely an indication that they were never 'perfect' in the first place.

Not sure that argument works for A&E, but it's certainly a good argument against the fall of the angels: if Satan and his fellow fallen angels once enjoyed direct, unmediated sight of God, and were sinless and capable of remaining so, how did they come to sin in the first place?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm not defining evil. I'm using your definition.  You said 'man' was a perfect moral being, and that 'man' choose to act in what you see as an evil manner. These 2 claims are logically contradictory.

Having a choice to do evil does not make you evil so making the choice makes you evil. You are not evil until you make the choice.
If you have, are compelled, fated, determined designed to make that choice. It isn’t a choice,

[Nearly Sane]

Having a choice to do evil does not make you evil so making the choice makes you evil. You are not evil until you make the choice.

Not only has no one said that having a choice to do evil makes one evil but you've tried that strawman before and I pointed out that no one is saying that. Repeating it makes you look like a liar.

A morally perfect being would not choose to commit evil. You have said that 'man' was a morally perfect being that chose to commit evil. The 2 positions you take there are logically contradictory.

ETA

I see you added the following after I replied

If you have, are compelled, fated, determined designed to make that choice. It isn’t a choice,

I agree, so what?

[Nearly Sane]

Not sure that argument works for A&E, but it's certainly a good argument against the fall of the angels: if Satan and his fellow fallen angels once enjoyed direct, unmediated sight of God, and were sinless and capable of remaining so, how did they come to sin in the first place?

Why doesn't it work for A&E? How would a morally perfect being, which Vlad claims 'man' was chose to commit evil?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not only has no one said that having a choice to do evil makes one evil but you've tried that strawman before and I pointed out that no one is saying that. Repeating it makes you look like a liar.

A morally perfect being would not choose to commit evil. You have said that 'man' was a morally perfect being that chose to commit evil. The 2 positions you take there are logically contradictory.

If it cannot choose evil then there is no choice. The statement  a morally perfect cannot choose evil is therefore what’s nonsense.

[Nearly Sane]

If it cannot choose evil then there is no choice. The statement  a morally perfect cannot choose evil is therefore what’s nonsense.

A morally perfect being won't choose evil. It's in the definition. A choice could be made to commit evil but in making it the bring shows itself not to be morally perfect.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

A morally perfect being won't choose evil. It's in the definition. A choice could beaded but in making it the bring shows itself not to be morally perfect.

But that isn’t my definition of being morally perfect which is without sin. But not prejudicing the choice of remaining without sin or sinning.

Your definition is an eternally perfect moral being.

[jeremyp]

Having a choice to do evil does not make you evil so making the choice makes you evil. You are not evil until you make the choice.
If you have, are compelled, fated, determined designed to make that choice. It isn’t a choice,

Let me explain why you're failing in simple terms.

On the one hand you claim God created us morally perfect. On the other hand you are claiming that humans aren't evil until they've done an evil thing.

Τhe properties "morally perfect" and "haven't done evil yet" are not the same thing.

[Nearly Sane]

But that isn’t my definition of being morally perfect which is without sin. But not prejudicing the choice of remaining without sin or sinning.

Your definition is an eternally perfect moral being.

Then your definition is essentially worthless. 'Las Jeremyp has already pointed it it's a truism. Perfection has an inbuilt definition of always perfect, of ot isn't always perfect, it's not perfect. I will leave you to your utterly confused wittering.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Then your definition is essentially worthless. 'Las Jeremyp has already pointed it it's a truism. Perfection has an inbuilt definition of always perfect, of ot isn't always perfect, it's not perfect. I will leave you to your utterly confused wittering.

Well, there’s a lot there for you to justify. Humans are not a kind of always thing. Your definition of morally perfect seems to be dependent on the concept of always rather then the concepts of moral or perfect.

Again if humans arrived morally imperfect, what was the moral imperfection that they arrived with?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think you're running away from the craziness of your fairytale. You haven't said what you think the penalty for us would be, only the batshit nonsense about Jesus's non-sacrifice.

The penalty for rejection of God and the things of God is not having God or the things of God. Yes, a metaphor like “Lake of fire” has caught the popular imagination but there are other metaphors”Going to their own place” and “dying in their own sins” which IMO give more pause for thought.

Why would anybody need forgiveness for being how God made them? It's God (if a God like you describe exists) that should be asking for forgiveness from us.

Sin is a choice. If evil were programmed in by God then, how do you account for doing good? Any reprogramming is at the hands of our forebears and ourselves.

With the silly, infinitesimal (to an eternal God) 30 years of cosplay, and 3 days of death. Yeah, right.

Regarding cosplay, it’s actually 30 years of being human. As for 3 days being dead, For a dead person what’s the difference between 3 days and 3 billion years?........Exactly none. The complaint of he only got 3 days is ridiculous.IMO.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I've never really understood this idea (or the idea of this thread initially). How can you engage with something you don't believe in?

As an agnostic atheist you don’t know there isn’t a God.
To me that should impose an intellectual duty to accept and entertain the possibility of the existence of God and ponder what this ultimate thing is like.
Some stop at reasons for and against God but to me that is like stopping at reasons for dinner sets or reasons for kier Starmer. You never arrive at the thing itself so it remains a theory.

[Maeght]

As an agnostic atheist you don’t know there isn’t a God.
To me that should impose an intellectual duty to accept and entertain the possibility of the existence of God and ponder what this ultimate thing is like.
Some stop at reasons for and against God but to me that is like stopping at reasons for dinner sets or reasons for kier Starmer. You never arrive at the thing itself so it remains a theory.

Engaging with the idea of God is fine, but that is different from engaging with God surely. You can't engage with something you don't believe in.

[Gordon]

As an agnostic atheist you don’t know there isn’t a God.
To me that should impose an intellectual duty to accept and entertain the possibility of the existence of God and ponder what this ultimate thing is like.
Some stop at reasons for and against God but to me that is like stopping at reasons for dinner sets or reasons for kier Starmer. You never arrive at the thing itself so it remains a theory.

You do struggle, Vlad: agnosticism refers to an absence of verifiable and/or justifiable knowledge that would be a sufficient basis to support belief (theism).

You seem to think that an agnostic atheist is somehow, by default, open to the possibility of 'God' when, as an agnostic atheist myself, I consider that there are no grounds in the form of knowledge to take claims of 'God' seriously at all.

[Outrider]

So you aren't suggesting objective morality but an ad populum morality, which means that what happened in Roman times is precisely as 'moral' as what happens now.

No, I'm not doing that, either, but don't let that stop you.

A claim that your argument is no worse than one you think is shite is a novel if unimpressive one.

I'm sure it is. Give it a bit, and I'm sure that Vlad will suggest it for you, so you can raise that very point.

O.

[Stranger]

The penalty for rejection of God and the things of God is not having God or the things of God. Yes, a metaphor like “Lake of fire” has caught the popular imagination but there are other metaphors”Going to their own place” and “dying in their own sins” which IMO give more pause for thought.

Firstly, you're still not telling us, or simply don't know what the penalty is. What are these "things of God"? Secondly, you can't reject something you don't believe exists.

Sin is a choice. If evil were programmed in by God then, how do you account for doing good?

Quite apart from the impossibility of true free will, which renders the whole idea of 'judgement' nonsensical, nobody lives up to God's standard, so it can't be a choice. If there was a genuine choice, then at least some people would make it.

Any reprogramming is at the hands of our forebears and ourselves.

And it's the involvement of our forebears that is the problem and it is because of your God's design, so that is your God's fault. It's how it made us.

Regarding cosplay, it’s actually 30 years of being human.

Humans can't do miracles, or don't you believe in that part of the story?

As for 3 days being dead, For a dead person what’s the difference between 3 days and 3 billion years?........Exactly none.

What exactly do you think happens when you're dead? If it's nothingness, then there wasn't much point Jesus dying anyway, and you never did address my point of what happened after Jesus was resurrected versus what happens when a sinner is, because, if it wasn't the same, then Jesus didn't genuinely take the punishment for sin at all and it was all just play-acting.

And what about Luke 23:43, where Jesus, while on the cross, makes a date to see somebody in paradise 'today'? If we was in paradise, it makes it even more absurd to say that he paid the price for our sins.

[Stranger]

As an agnostic atheist you don’t know there isn’t a God.
To me that should impose an intellectual duty to accept and entertain the possibility of the existence of God and ponder what this ultimate thing is like.

An agnostic atheist clearly can't see any reason to think a God exists at all, otherwise they wouldn't be atheist. So trying to decide what it's like would be a little on the impossible side. The agnostic part is simply because there are countless claims about different versions of God or gods, that are unfalsifiable.

[Outrider]

As an agnostic atheist you don’t know there isn’t a God.

Agnostic theists don't know there is a God, but they believe there is. Should they spend time considering the possibility that God doesn't exist to ponder what the universe is actually like?

Agnosticism doesn't mean your belief is somehow less compelling to you, it means you're in the intellectual position that you don't believe it's possible to definitively prove that there is or isn't a god. In order to revisit the belief, you'd need to encounter an explanation or a description that was somehow profoundly different from what you've encountered before, because you've already found the other ideas wanting.

To me that should impose an intellectual duty to accept and entertain the possibility of the existence of God and ponder what this ultimate thing is like.

The reality is that we already have. We've been showered with notions of God, and Allah, and Yahweh, and the Hindu pantheon, and Norse and Greek and Viking and, depending on individual experiences, maybe Incan and Native American and Shinto and Egyptian and Sumerian and so on. We've entertained the possibility, and it doesn't make sense to some of us, it doesn't 'feel' right for others. The idea that we're somehow ignorant of the notion, that we've not come across these notions, even as we fill a board with arguments against the very notions you're trying to utilise, just smack of arrogance, ignorance and patronisation. Perhaps you should actually take a moment to think about what Atheism means, given the various demonstrations of it here and elsewhere, and realised that we're just as informed and rational and widely-read as you, but we've come to a different conclusion.

Some stop at reasons for and against God but to me that is like stopping at reasons for dinner sets or reasons for kier Starmer. You never arrive at the thing itself so it remains a theory.

Some stop at reasons for and against God. Some stop at reasons for and against Leprechauns. Some don't see those as different reasons...

O.

[jeremyp]

If evil were programmed in by God then, how do you account for doing good?

You are the only one in this thread claiming that God did any programming at all. I account for doing good by the fact that humans are evolved animals and our capacity for doing good or evil are evolved characteristics. In fact, the concepts of good and evil are human defined constructs, in my opinion.

I don't have a problem, it is you who has the problem.

Regarding cosplay, it’s actually 30 years of being human.

30 years of cosplay as a human. Got it.

As for 3 days being dead,

Yes that's ridiculous. Jesus was only dead (according to your Bible from Friday afternoon until the early hours of Sunday morning at the longest. That's not even two days.

For a dead person what’s the difference between 3 days and 3 billion years?........Exactly none. The complaint of he only got 3 days is ridiculous.IMO.

Properly dead people don't come alive again at all. The problem is not that Jesus was dead for two days, three days, a fortnight, or a billion years. The problem is that his "death" was temporary.

And, if there is no difference between three days and three billion years, neither is there a difference between a fraction of a second and three days. Well done, you've just trivialised Jesus' alleged sacrifice even further.

[Gordon]

Vlad

Would it be morally 'imperfect' to think immoral thoughts, as a possible option, even if the option is not ever enacted?

You see I'm struggling to understand how a 'morally perfect' human could ever think immorally, such as to wish someone dead, since if they did even think that then surely they aren't 'morally perfect'. You seem to think that only actions are morally suspect and that dubious intentions or thoughts are compatible with moral perfection provided they aren't acted upon - and that seems silly as well as illogical.

You must be running out of corners to paint yourself into.

[Nearly Sane]

Vlad

Would it be morally 'imperfect' to think immoral thoughts, as a possible option, even if the option is not ever enacted?

You see I'm struggling to understand how a 'morally perfect' human could ever think immorally, such as to wish someone dead, since if they did even think that then surely they aren't 'morally perfect'. You seem to think that only actions are morally suspect and that dubious intentions or thoughts are compatible with moral perfection provided they aren't acted upon - and that seems silly as well as illogical.

You must be running out of corners to paint yourself into.

I think we have to accept that Vlad is using 'morally perfect' only in the sense of not having committed evil. A table is morally perfect.

[SteveH]

Jesus was only dead (according to your Bible from Friday afternoon until the early hours of Sunday morning at the longest. That's not even two days.

It has been suggested that Jesus died on a Wednesday. The Bible doesn't say that he died on a Friday, just that the next day was the sabbath - which would normally be Saturday, but it seems that the first-century Jews had seven extra sabbaths a year, which did not necessarily fall on a Saturday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Sabbaths
https://christianityfaq.com/what-day-was-jesus-christ-crucified-the-debate/