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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
Sophomoric was a tit-for-tat that I didn’t use first.
Bootstrapping is an entirely accurate way of pointing out the logical fallacy in an argument that assumes it’s own conclusion.
The other three all came from one comment referring to your habit of warning people from on high about the peril of their mortal souls, as though you had some unique insight into the matter. You don’t have to like those words, but they accurately describe my feelings about a behavior that you engage in constantly, despite repeated requests that you cease and desist. At some point it’s simply boorish. Add that to your list.
…and provides no reason to accept the second premise except the a priori assumption that human lives have value, which he got from his own Christian faith and upbringing. And yes, the CI is morally neutral shorn of its dependence on Christian morality. That is the problem. Kant just assumes that the CI will lead to conclusions that read like “thou shalt not murder” and “thou shalt not steal”. This is not true, especially not as he himself wrote the categorical imperative.
No, I have more and better reasons for this certainty on lines of reasoning, evidence and inferences from that evidence that are more solid than the evidence I have for the existence of Sun Tzu, Lao Tzu, Siddhartha Gautama, and for that matter, Hengest and Horsa. So my knowledge and trust is everything but unjustified.
“Bootstrapping” umm….not. Just a logical inference to most rational conclusion, again. Otherwise one is trapped in the absurdity of an infinite regress. Reality must have a rational starting point and that starting point is God.
Because they are elements of God. Again, there is no God-independent source of these things. Moral duties can only be owed to a person, and the person under discussion here is an eternal, moral and rational entity.
He provides a very clear reason: human beings are rational and a rational will is necessarily autonomous. Human beings, unlink animals, use reason and free will as a guide to their own actions rather than being a slave to mere passion. The presence of self guiding reason and free will is the reason all human beings deserve equal respect and worth. Human beings are not means but are ends in and of themselves.
Prove God exists. After that explain where God came from.
Are you familiar with the expression “deus ex machina”? Your “deus” is literally your “dues ex machina.” Convenient? Yes. It resolves the problems with the story if you accept it. But demonstrable? Demonstrably not.
It was already explained to me that it is “sophomoric” to ask these questions Jamie. I believe that translates roughly as “I don’t have an answer for them.”
I don’t know why I suddenly thought of Peter Singer, who was greatly influenced by Kant.
The problem with “reason” as the foundation for human worth is easily illustrated by this professor of ethics who teaches at Princeton University and has had an extremely influential career in philosophy. It is not like he’s some fringe dude. He’s been appointed to the Order of Australia for his work.
IF reason is the thing that gives man his worth, any man who lacks the ability to reason has no worth. This is why Peter Singer feels notions about the “sanctity of life” are rather old fashioned. It is fine to kill the unborn or newborns who are not real people or adults who are no longer sentient.
In other words, without God, it is quite rational to be utilitarian, and a person’s “worth” can be considered when making certain decisions about his fate.
That said, Singer believes that morality is “somehow universal” so one should not interfere with someone else’s interests. However, if a person is no longer able to process pain or pleasure, he is not a person anymore.
I may be wrong, but I think he extends this to “living beings” via his ideas on “personism” as certain animals are self-aware.
What does this show me?
Peter Singer can reason himself right into the position of being God because Peter Singer can even decide when a person’s humanity is gone.
Some of his ideas about ethical behavior are very rational while also being completely abhorrent.
He has always made me personally think of Hitler’s notions about “useless feeders,” and I’m pretty sure we can universally condemn those notions.
Also, I was thinking about Kant’s racism. The reason it matters per Paddy’s article is that Kant was a real man. But so was Jesus of Nazareth. Both walked the earth as human beings, yes? None of us here dispute this fact.
Yet I’ve never read any account at all ever about Jesus degrading other human beings in the way Kant did or Singer does. I can’t, honestly, think of anything the human man ever said about morality that anyone now finds immoral.
Even if I didn’t believe he was the Messiah, as I admittedly do, this means he stands as a better model of that which is simply good… that which is objectively moral.
I mean, yeah. I think it matters what a man says and does if he is the founder of one’s religion.
And in case I’m unclear, since we have all conceded we have “faith cans” to kick in our roads, I believe all of us here have a religion as the dictionary defines such as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”
On what authority is that based?
Prove he doesn’t.
Pure practical reason. That you need an authority to hand things down does not mean the rest of us do.
I don’t have to, I don’t base my life on him. All I’m trying to point out is that everyone reaches a point where they posit the existence of something that is entirely based on faith.
How do you deal with different groups of people coming to different conclusions based on pure practical reason?
Don’t demand proof if you’re not willing to make a case for the other side.
I show them that their reasoning is wrong.
How do you deal with people who decide that God has told them different things. Let me pick something out of left field here…say…Muslims?
The difference is that I make no claim that my belief is the only source of moral reasoning, just one of them.
You were closer to an accurate statement when you kept the claim at “the CI is a tool for moral reasoning”. The mistake that both you and Kant make is that you assume that reason, by itself, will inevitably lead to morally good results. Its ability to do that entirely depends on the premises behind the maxims that will be generally applied. He makes this error repeatedly in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. He does deal well with the corruption of the will (which he borrows from Luther, and in turn from Paul, and in turn from biblical wisdom literature) but he does not give a solid logical reason for positing that the end – the human being- would not be better served by a world in which each human being viewed preserving his own life as the supreme end, and all other ends subordinate to that one, just to give one example.
And this is to misidentify the key point of the argument, which is actually not the source of moral reasoning (per se) but the source of transcendent moral laws. Now, one could argue about the source of moral reasoning, but that doesn’t really seem to be what we are talking about.
Why trust reason? If you are just a collection of chemicals reacting with each other and with external stimuli, one that has only been programmed by time and chance to survive, then you have no rational grounds for trusting your ability to reason. You can still decide to trust it, but it becomes a different kind of Pascal’s wager at that point (“It is better to believe that my mind can function rationally and produce factually true, logically sound patterns of thought than not to believe that”).
No, it translates into “The heavens declare the glory of God” as does cosmic fine tuning, moral law, and in the case of the Bible, the literal mountains of archaeological evidence in favor of it being a trustworthy source, along with personal, subject experience of interaction with God in my life. And “where God came from” does remain a sophomoric question because eternality is one of the aspects of God that defines God’s very being. It’s like saying “show me a box full of time.” Jamie comes close to get this point when he says “Every one reaches a point where they posit the existence of something that is entirely based on faith.” I would consider “faith” here to be shorthand for a combination of rational inference, spiritual insight and trust in the content of those inferences and insights.
This is inconsistent with your requirement for proof of any other view.
How?
You may be talking about “transcendent moral law” but I am not. I am satisfied to struggle forward as best I can in a world that – as far as I can tell – has no transcendent moral law.” You are, once again, assuming your conclusion.
Oh, well then. If “the heavens declare it” I guess that’s good enough.
Hartman, I don’t mind that you believe what you believe. What I find sophomoric (let’s stick with that word) is your unwillingness to acknowledge that I might quite reasonably look at the same tangible evidence as you and not reach the same conclusion.
I also want to say I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I address points–give a counter of some sort–I am testing my own thinking… not anyone else’s.
I mean, I’ve thought a LOT during this long dialogue and learned all sorts of things I either did not know or had forgotten.
That has truly been a blessing for me,so I am grateful this conversation has been ongoing.
That’s why I like you Lois, and why you deserve a man as amazing as Clark.
Moderator Note:
Please find a way to state your conclusion without accusing others of bad faith or personalizing the conversation.Lois I don’t have a problem with anything you’ve said. Hartman, on the other hand, just keeps popping in and insisting whatever’s being talked about is obviously god. [Redacted]