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Jesus of Nazareth
I found this on the Amorality of Atheism Facebook website page. I don’t endorse the idea that all atheists are amoral though.
Read an article in the Belfast Telegraph recently which said that “Today religion remains a popular historical hobby but not, thankfully, something we take seriously any more”. But whilst the narrow circle of people the author knows might not take religion seriously, there is one person they cannot afford not to take seriously.
He lived millennia ago, travelling by foot, with no car or horse, never leaving a rural area only slightly larger than Northern Ireland. He was a tradesman most of his life, and taught for only three years, spending most of his time with small crowds, and dying in his early thirties. He left behind no children, no army, or political lobby group, to trumpet his cause.
Yet today He is the central figure of the world’s best-selling book, and the subject of millions more. His name is known all over the globe, and spoken in hundreds of different languages. His followers are the most persecuted people on Earth, yet increase by 25 million every year, and his message has outlasted kingdoms, empires, dictators, revolutions, ideologies and religions.
He is arguably the most influential, lauded, loathed, misunderstood, controversial and quoted man to ever walk the face of the Earth. You can write him off as a liar, cast him aside as a lunatic, or look on Him as Lord, but one thing you cannot do is ignore Him. — Andrew Kirke
I’d also add that contrary to what some rags or magazines or online sites put out today of all days, or in prior Easters (Raw Story, CNN, Huffington Post) that no serious historian has ever seriously believed that Jesus did not exist. Only historical illiterates do. Christ was mentioned in Jewish, Greek, and Roman writings. For historians of the 1st century that is more than enough to prove he lived. Keep in mind that what we know of Alexander the Great or Aristotle depends on one source or sources written hundreds of years after their life as in the case of the former.
My faith in Jesus often wavers. I have a doubters’ mind. Nevertheless when I see atheists or non believers rubbish the man’s existence it is as if my faith is renewed again. For in doing so I am confronted not with reasoned belief but blind ignorance. An ignorance at its heart rooted in the desire of the accusers a wish for him not to exist. After all if Christ did exist the onus becomes on the modern unbeliever to take more seriously his words. This can be problem for them, indeed for any soul.
But their refusal also forces me to re-look the evidence for Christ. It also causes me to learn more things about the man. In a weird way it strengthens my faith. Christianity is after all a faith which is soaked in contradictions. It’s also one grounded in the search for Truth. Ecce homo — Behold the man. A man whose life changed humanity.
Published in History, Religion & Philosophy
That’s true, but I look at the existence of morality as proof that God is real in the same way I would look at a trust fund and find it as proof of an unknown Nana.
I don’t know.
It’s not as if I have always been a person of faith. Ironically, I just see God as the most reasonable explanation for objective morality. If I look elsewhere, I fall down a rabbit hole of relativism or… worse… nihilism.
I mean, philosophy is intent on trying to understand the foundation of everything, but it seems limited to me as philosophy itself suggests the whole of this foundation is not knowable.
Therefore, I am more comfortable intellectually when moving from the space of man as the center of morality to man as the servant of a higher power.
Perhaps I’m wrong when creating this construction. Perhaps I’m right.
It’s the only construction that makes sense to me.
All that said, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation because the truth is that I enjoy being pushed into thinking about why I have reached the conclusions I have reached over the course of my own life’s journey. That is always a productive and good thing to do. Truly.
Two things:
And his reality does not depend on your intellectual assent or mine.
The problem with the CI is that it is morally utterly neutral, as formulated by Kant. If one can make a case that killing the infirm and weak will make the world a better place and that others should follow this universally applicable maxim, there is nothing inherent to the CI that refutes it or even calls into question.
Actually, it was the Bible that drove the fight against slavery and against racism. The use of the Bible to justify racism in particular was reading against and not in tune with the clear meaning of the text, the context of the passages adduced as “proof texts” and much of the interpretive tradition. This is quite the opposite of the case with the CI to give a modern example or the case of the “sword verses” of the Koran.
I definitely need to work on philosophy, but yes. CI = tool.
I guess I get confused because the tool seems to me in part to be the definer of the morality in a unique way per how I see its limits. I mean, it’s like the chisel that forms the statue, which means it is necessary to the statue’s becoming, whereas the theological understanding is that the statue exists without the tool.
Now I’m making the CI this chisel. I get that it is meant to be more like a telescope. I get that’s how you see it.
All of us are at times horrible human beings. Men have turned the Bible into a chisel at times to form bad realities. The problem is that I don’t see Kant’s chisel as anything but a chisel. It makes horrible or pretty statues based on the sculptor alone.
Let me ask this.
Does reason create the objective morality? Or is objective morality already there?
You say objective morality always is, and we use the categorical imperative to figure it out… to access it?
I guess that’s my hangup, to go back to the chisel.
If reason is the thing that leads us to understand objective morality, what determines it to begin with?
Sigggghhhh…..
Again, maybe I’m not smart enough for this thread. ;)
That’s not true at all. You have to remember that Kant coupled the CI as a tool with the idea that human beings are ends in and of themselves. This would be a rejection of the second premise.
Stop that, we’re all just discussing things here and you’re more than smart enough for it. If intelligence was a factor I would have bowed out long ago.
So I guess you can say that for me objective morality just is in the same way that for you God just is. We use Pure Practical Reason and the Categorical Imperative to reveal it.
You’re kind, but I do have holes in my education. I blame public schools. ;)
The interesting thing is that I believe we both feel as if we are using reason to reveal objective morality. But I do offer an explanation for why it exists at all. This is the thing that keeps catching me.
You say objective morality just is. I say why?
Of course, I believe God is the reason for this foundation, which–in agreement with you–definitely is, and you say why?
:D
I follow that and don’t dispute its logic. Again, for me, the hang up is the presumption that God exists.
@tommeyer
See comment 129. God is the only explanation I’ve ever heard that sounds rational, so I didn’t start with God. He was the only answer to the “why” question that is immovable.
Of course I fully concede movement from A God to THE God is another line of inquiry.
That is correct, but — from where I’m sitting — you’re arguing forward from a premise (God’s existence) that I don’t hold. I’m not saying your premise is wrong, but I’m objecting to what sounds like an insistence that I should hold it.
Deeply imperfect analogy of how this conversation feels from this side of the fence:
That’s an interesting and, I think, important point. I’ll add that I don’t recall encountering a non-theistic answer to the why that’s satisfying.
On the flip side, the fact that God provides a satisfying — rationally, as well as emotionally — answer to the question does not mean it’s true. It may be supporting evidence for its veracity, but that’s another matter.
Thank you.
And sure. I understand the flip side. Goodness. I totally do.
It’s just at some point I suppose I felt I had to make up my mind about which answers were the most satisfying. Don’t we all eventually get to that point? Whether it’s me hanging with God or Jamie hanging with Kant. ;)
Regardless, I didn’t start with the premise, and I don’t always see the 3-D horse.
But after years of personal inquiry, I haven’t found any system that gives me the whole picture without some leaps of faith: theological or secular. Therefore, I leapt into the pool that I felt was most likely to have water, and that led me to swim into deeper sections that require, perhaps, more faith while becoming a Christian.
These answers are nothing but bootstrapping.
God either is or isn’t, that’s true. It’s not a question of our “assent” at all, any more than the Pacific ocean’s existence is a question or our “assent” or the non-existence of leprechauns is a question of our “assent.” In fact, your comment is sophomoric. The point, which you are evading, is that we do not “know” whether god exists. You no doubt think you do, but in fact you only believe it, you do not “know” it. And you are premising your entire argument on your unjustified certainty.
Right, but to me that you just kick the can down the road. We both have the existence of something that needs no creator. Yours is God, mine is objective morality.
So I guess we arrive at this question: if God doesn’t need a creator and has always existed, why can’t the same be true of universal laws like physics or objective morality?
^ This. We are in accord.
Alright. But your can is still sitting in the road every bit as much as mine is. :D
Or beauty? Or justice?
Again, I stipulate that God’s existence and our having some real knowledge of him could provide a single and powerful answer.
But, I’d say, that’s a lot to stipulate.
I agree.
So do I.
Because they aren’t the same thing. And if I concede that they are, then you are left with the same bottom turtle you believe theists have.
You know I really did play “kick the can” when I was a kid. Everyone would meet right before the fireflies came out… all the kids in the neighborhood. We’d play that and “ghosts in the graveyard” until our mothers called us home.
Life was simple, easy and glorious when I was young.
I suppose we could argue all day about whether they’re “the same thing” but they have at least one thing in common — there’s no tangible evidence for either one of them. There’s nothing but theories, reasoning, and beliefs — all essentially products of the human mind. Nothing verifiable in the external world proves the existence of either.
True dat, Cato.
Of course, I could point out I have felt there has been very tangible evidence in my own life for God–like that kid who feels the support of the hidden Nana per an analogy made many comments back–but that which is experienced by Christians is often dismissed as not credible. I understand this.
Therefore, I’ll stick with the “all of us have made a leap of faith” line.
Well, except for the agnostic.
He’s still on the diving board. :D
I am in agreement on the “all having a leap of faith”. I know I believe things I can’t prove and that don’t have tangible evidence to support them too. I do not, however, think that “I have felt it in my life” qualifies as either tangible or external evidence. It is a subjective experience. That doesn’t make it false, or unimportant, or even not credible, merely not verifiable.
I do think it’s interesting that billions of people have had similar–even if subjective–experiences, but I am not going to force the point. I get it.
I think in the end we are in agreement about where were are on this issue.
We all must rely to some degree on faith.
I’ll take it. :D
arrogant
condescending
obnoxious
bootstrapping
sophomoric
I think this conversation is now completely exhausted, but I give my best regards to all who participated, and my special thanks to Paddy who wrote the original article in this holiest of seasons. (We will be in Easter until Pentecost.)
Of course, Paddy is completely right with these statements, as it’s definitely not easy to be “any soul” if Christ truly exists. This is because actioning His words is hard for mere mortals, whatever beliefs they profess. At least that actioning is seriously hard for me.
After all, His words tell us quite clearly that the best way to serve Him is to project His love, and that means we are to always shine like light.
Not. Easy.
Ephesians 4:32 – Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Mark 11:25 – And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.