What if God didn't make it that way?
...
Or, if you do blame God for not being at peace with sin... take a look at the cross. There, God went further than anyone can properly imagine to overcome and erase the barrier that was keeping His creation from total and absolute harmony with Him.

If God created the world and everything in it, then he did. He created words, then told us not to use them in certain ways. He created our bodies, and told us not to use them in certain ways? It does not make sense. Anything we can do is neither right nor wrong, it just is. Someone said I have a bleak outlook on life, because I do not see God as our purpose? I do not see any purpose in life or anything that exists, and I won't settle for being an eternal slave to God's will. I remember one time in an argument I made the claim that "Life has no purpose without immortality and free will, free will causes suffering, and if God desired that for us he either desired or allowed suffering. Life is either an experiment or a sick joke."

If I must go to the flames of hell to protest one who created us selfishly, I will gladly do it. If God is indifferent to us, I will not show him love. If there is no god, I'm just wasting my time even thinking about this, but I don't think we'll ever know.

Religion is just another way to conform and to control the
crowds. Never let someone tell you how to live or what your
thinking. It’s your life…live it how you want to and **** the
rest and remember to reserve your place in hell.”

I'm probably getting into something that I'm not fully understanding, but what do you mean by God being indifferent to us, Andrew? (Apologies if this was clarified earlier, but I'm not understanding what you mean by him being indifferent to us, if you mean him just leaving us to fend for ourselves?)

I mean he created us and abandoned us, doesn't care what happens to us and isn't going to be there for us when we die.

If God created the world and everything in it, then he did.

You fail to state your reasoning behind this (and conveniently ignore the reasoning I stated for why it is a false assumption). Again, God did not create His own nature.

I don't meant to be confrontational, I just like engaging in discussion, and I don't see where you've addressed or refuted my specific points.

S'all good, though, if you don't want to.

If God created the world and everything in it, then he did.

You fail to state your reasoning behind this (and conveniently ignore the reasoning I stated for why it is a false assumption).

Firstly because, since there are no moral rights or wrongs, there is no reason to either do or not do, well, anything. Including "sin." If certain things were right or wrong, it would be different for everyone and there is no legitimate way to draw a line. I think the Joker said it best in the dark knight, "Their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble."

You can say the Bible tells us to act this way, but without legitimate reasoning behind it there is no legitimate reason to follow it.

You fail to state your reasoning behind this (and conveniently ignore the reasoning I stated for why it is a false assumption).

Firstly because, since there are no moral rights or wrongs, there is no reason to either do or not do, well, anything. Including "sin." If certain things were right or wrong, it would be different for everyone and there is no legitimate way to draw a line. I think the Joker said it best in the dark knight, "Their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble."

You can say the Bible tells us to act this way, but without legitimate reasoning behind it there is no legitimate reason to follow it.

Again, the statement "there are no moral rights or wrongs" is an assumption. It cannot be proven, and you have not discussed your reasons for holding that assumption.

Furthermore, do you realize that the statement "there are no moral rights or wrongs" is an absolute statement? Therefore implying that absolutes do, in some form, exist?

Relativism is unfortunately too simple. Exceptions to it can be found at the drop of a hat.

I love The Dark Knight (huge Batman fan in general), but the Joker is hardly a trustworthy philosopher.

I've often heard the Romans 9 and encounter with Pharoah in Exodus to determine that God determines who he chooses and who he doesn't. But the word 'hate' in Romans 9 is a mistranslation. It is really more of a 'love less' in the same context that Jesus tells us to 'hate' our own mother, brother, sisters, etc. It is simply a comparison term. And as for Pharoah, God actually told Moses at the Burning Bush that he had already decided that he would not let the Israelites go when proposed the question. God didn't force that decision upon him. The decision was already made, and God had Pharoah carry it out to the end.

Now it is very challenging for someone who holds moral standards to really be able to communicate with someone who doesn't. But I fail to understand the logic of following a belief that contains far more questions than the ones it is trying to answer. If there is a God that created the universe and everything, what does that mean? If the angel Gabriel gave Muhammed the message of the Koran and Allah, what does that mean? If there is no God and everything happened by chance as evolution preaches, what does that mean?

I have sadly seen so many people following their faith blindly. And everyone demonstrates faith whether they know it or not. If you are sitting down at your computer reading this, you are having faith that your chair is holding you up, that your computer is transmitting all its electrons and voltage pulses, represented as 0's and 1's, to make your computer screen show this page, that the building you are in stands firm, etc, etc. Faith requires an object. Like an airplane, you can believe it will fly all day long. But you aren't exercising faith until you get on it. For most Christians, their faith is in Jesus Christ. They are putting thier wager (for one analogy) that he is who he says he is and pulls through on his word. Muslims put thier faith in Allah. Evolutionists put thier faith in science. But the only thing I can think of that agnostics put thier faith in is uncertainty and doubt.

Now back to my questions. If God created the world and everything in it as the Bible says, what does that mean? It means there is a creator and everyone of us is responsible to answer to him. It means that what Jesus claimed to be and do is true and our only hope of salvation is through Him. If the Muslims are correct, then we better start forcing converts to Islam, kill ourselves for the cause, torture and kill any who refuse to convert, and more. If evolution is true, all we can rely on is what we see, feel, hear, smell, and taste. If the agnostics are true, what does that mean? We don't know and can't know. One might be right, but so might another.

The real problem with not having any standards is that everyone will do what is right in their own eyes. And throughout history we have seen what happens when that POV is prevalent in a culture. The Nazis thought it was right to kill off 6 million Jews. Muslims believe it is right to kill the 'infidels' who do not believe as they do. Many kings in medieval Europe thought it was right to viciously tax the poor to feed the wealthy. This is a recurring theme in the Book of Judges and it went into details of what happens when a Levite and his concubine visited a town in Judges 19. And almost exact retelling of the incident of Sodom and Gomorrah and the people thought it was right for them.

But any study of the cultures of the world will reveal that there are some laws, some standards that are prevalent in every single one. Name me one that legalizes murder or theft or adultury, or lying. The ones that do commit it, due so under the guise of war, spoils, or things like that. Muslims are trained to lie to their enemy and to kill 'infidels' but that is a case of war (what they believe to be war), but they hold adultery to be an extreme offense. If all these cultures have these standards in common, what is the common factor? I consider it to be along the lines at the common factor of a massive world wide flood myth in every culture as well. Like there is a common source for the flood myths, there is a common source for social standards. And the Bible does say, that God has written his Law upon the hearts of men.

One of the reasons I believe in Christianity is that in over 2000 years, not a single thing has disproven its claims, and while countless external evidences cannot prove it, they always line up with exact precision. I can go on and on about this, but that is enough for now.

Again, the statement "there are no moral rights or wrongs" is an assumption. It cannot be proven, and you have not discussed your reasons for holding that assumption.

Furthermore, do you realize that the statement "there are no moral rights or wrongs" is an absolute statement? Therefore implying that absolutes do, in some form, exist?

Indeed it is, but unlike morality, it is based in reason that has no overriding answer to why it is "wrong." Morality holds that all actions are not equal, and the reasoning behind it matters. I see everything as equal, the reasoning does not matter to the end result. Let's take killing: manslaughter vs. murder. If someone is found to have accidentally killed someone they will recieve a lesser punishment than one proven to have intent to kill. However at the end of the day, the other person is dead. Why they were killed is not going to change that.

And it is not an absolute, rather an ultimatum. Mainly because it is not true for all people of all times, and the fact that it is an ultimatum validates the idea behind it as absolute. The only absolute is that there are no absolutes? Perhaps.

If God created the world and everything in it as the Bible says, what does that mean? It means there is a creator and everyone of us is responsible to answer to him. It means that what Jesus claimed to be and do is true and our only hope of salvation is through Him. If the Muslims are correct, then we better start forcing converts to Islam, kill ourselves for the cause, torture and kill any who refuse to convert, and more. If evolution is true, all we can rely on is what we see, feel, hear, smell, and taste. If the agnostics are true, what does that mean? We don't know and can't know. One might be right, but so might another.

The real problem with not having any standards is that everyone will do what is right in their own eyes. And throughout history we have seen what happens when that POV is prevalent in a culture. The Nazis thought it was right to kill off 6 million Jews. Muslims believe it is right to kill the 'infidels' who do not believe as they do. Many kings in medieval Europe thought it was right to viciously tax the poor to feed the wealthy. This is a recurring theme in the Book of Judges and it went into details of what happens when a Levite and his concubine visited a town in Judges 19. And almost exact retelling of the incident of Sodom and Gomorrah and the people thought it was right for them.

I don't feel required to answer to god just because he created me, in fact I rather dislike the fact that he did (assuming he did), and it would have been better for all of us if he had not (Ecclesiastes 4:3).

And no standards is really the only way to live, indeed certain things are poorly handled but that is how we are when we are not advanced enough to understand the consequences of our actions. The Nazis had a good idea, but their methodoligy was disruptive (please note that I am NOT in any way condoning their barbaric actions). But the fact of the matter is it would be better for humanity if we eliminated certain parts, however should we? I don't agree with killing off anybody because they are deemed unfit, and I think diversity causes growth.

So, the way I see it, nothing done is "wrong," but it is not "wrong" to pit yourself against others when you disagree with what they do.

Now, I haven't really explained this yet, but here I go: I think it's okay to set yourself standards of "right" and "wrong," but you must understand that they are not truly existant. Right and wrong are merely opposite ends on an imaginary pole.

I think the roots of the problem many Agnostics and Atheists have with many traditional views of Christianity revolve around two issues:

-Free Will vs Predestiny (and indeed many here have argued that God in His Omnipotence both predestined and foreordained every event throughout all time, including who will be Saved and who will end up in Hell).
-The concept of God as Creator of All--if God Created literally everything, then He bears the ultimate responsibility for suffering and evil. Evil is posited as NOT being part of God's nature in any way in Christianity, but it's really difficult to draw any other conclusion if one accepts the above.

So Andrew is really only basing his points on what he sees are the logical conclusions to be drawn from most literal or traditional Christian interpretations of the Bible. Obviously, the more one factors Free Will into the equation, the less cruel or indifferent God would seem. But regardless, the ultimate responsibility would still belong to a Creator who would allow Evil to exist.

However, Andrew's Deist notion of a Creator God who simply abandoned His Creation does seem rather bleak to me too. Which is why I lean towards a Panentheist view--which is pretty well defined in a Nutshell on Wikipedia:

Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system which posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe.

Briefly put, in pantheism, "God is the whole"; in panentheism, "The whole is in God." This means that the Universe in the first formulation is practically the Whole itself, but in the second the universe and God are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is not necessarily viewed as the creator or demiurge, but the eternal animating force behind the universe, some versions positing the universe as nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that God and the universe are coextensive, panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe and some forms hold that the universe is contained within God. Hinduism is highly characterized by Panentheism and Pantheism.

As for Morality, I do believe that there are some Absolutes, but in a tension with Relativism. Even people who do believe in a completely Absolute system of Morality tend to apply it Relatively, consciously acknowledged or not.

And Theism isn't necessary for a code of Morality. Reason alone can be a basis for Morality: If someone causes me pain, I suffer. If I cause someone else pain, they suffer. The Golden Rule flows naturally from this basic Existential fact.

Also, Andrew, I'm having a hard time discerning what the "Nazi's great idea" was .

GB

I mean he created us and abandoned us, doesn't care what happens to us and isn't going to be there for us when we die.

Do you believe this and so confidently put this to be true, or not? Because, then if you do, I'm curious as to how you've come to that conclusion. Personal experience that what you believed as God has abandoned you, or just something you believe?

So Andrew is really only basing his points on what he sees are the logical conclusions to be drawn from most literal or traditional Christian interpretations of the Bible...However, Andrew's Deist notion of a Creator God who simply abandoned His Creation does seem rather bleak to me too...Also, Andrew, I'm having a hard time discerning what the "Nazi's great idea" was .

Well, in a pantheistic veiw, god is not even concious and so I do not really see any point (not an interesting one, anyways) in proving an already indifferent god to be indifferent.

As for the Nazi's idea, they wanted to funnel humans into their ideal person. Their idea was, take the genes that make us smart, fast, strong, beautiful, etc., seperate them from the rest and keep only those genetics alive. Their ideal was a white skinned, blonde-haired, blue eyed person (which, ironically enough, is the worst combination for physical acceleration). Now, I do not think so narrowly, but the idea of cutting out mental and physical diseases is appealing. It would better the human race, but at this point in time the ends to not justify the means, in my oppinion.

Morality holds that all actions are not equal, and the reasoning behind it matters. I see everything as equal, the reasoning does not matter to the end result. Let's take killing: manslaughter vs. murder. If someone is found to have accidentally killed someone they will recieve a lesser punishment than one proven to have intent to kill. However at the end of the day, the other person is dead. Why they were killed is not going to change that.

I don't see how the immutability of an end result affects the question of morality; morality is, as you pointed out, explicitly concerned with intent, and I would argue that intent ultimately matters more to people than "the end result." In fact, it often drastically affects how people react to any given tragedy and its responsible parties.

That's precisely why our justice system is so concerned with intent: because it matters to people. It matters why a tragic event (if caused by a person) occurred at all, and what that person's intentions were in the midst of it. Both for the offended party (the family of the deceased, in your example) and the offender (killer).

Morality is about the people involved in an event, not the event itself.

Perhaps this is the real point where your outlook and Christ's part ways. Christ spoke famously of intent being weightier than action.

And it is not an absolute, rather an ultimatum. Mainly because it is not true for all people of all times, and the fact that it is an ultimatum validates the idea behind it as absolute.

Ultimatums are absolute statements. I don't see how they can be defined otherwise.

The only absolute is that there are no absolutes? Perhaps.

Which is self-defeating, and therefore invalid as an assertion of truth.

Well, a few things...

The Nazi's did not invent eugenics, they simply adopted it as a way to exploit the pre-existing feelings of anti-semitism at the time. Secondly, I'd be very careful of describing this as a 'good idea'. The attempt to create a perfect race was from the beginning a veneer under which the party intended to exploit anti-semitism, exert control over the people and eventually begin the systematic extermination the Jewish people.

I'm not trying to jump into the argument here, Andrew, but to point out the danger in the concept of eugenics. God or no God, deeming people as acceptable or not is a slippery slope. Cures for mental and physical illnesses would be wonderful, but suggesting we should be attempting to eradicate these people from the gene pool is rather offensive.

Morality is about the people involved in an event, not the event itself.

Perhaps this is the real point where your outlook and Christ's part ways. Christ spoke famously of intent being weightier than action.

Ultimatums are absolute statements. I don't see how they can be defined otherwise.

But the people are relative, just like morals. Who did it doesn't really matter aside from bringing them to justice, and consolation for the victim's loved ones.

If I'm recalling the right definitions of words, ultimatums are statements that are true for the situation, but not for all people, at all times, in all places (which an absolute is).

Here's something to think about: if right and wrong existed, how come there are mental conditions such as narcisism, psycopathy, sociopathy and schitzophrenia, where people are born or changed to be inable to discern "right" and "wrong." Also, if right and wrong were natural, true things, why must we be taught them (rather that instinctually know them), and why can our veiws on them change?

I'm not trying to jump into the argument here, Andrew, but to point out the danger in the concept of eugenics. God or no God, deeming people as acceptable or not is a slippery slope. Cures for mental and physical illnesses would be wonderful, but suggesting we should be attempting to eradicate these people from the gene pool is rather offensive.

And that is why Nazism failed, and as I said the end do not justify the means until we have a way to remove those traits without killing off whatever race carries them.

Andrew, Pantheism doesn't preclude Consciousness or Intent at all. Indeed, the inclusion of the term "theism" rather implies the opposite.

Personally, I am opposed to Eugenics of any sort, no matter what means are employed. Shantih pretty much covers my perspective on that issue. Though, I would add that I don't think Genetically Engineering Humans would produce "better" Humans than Natural Selection (or "Theistic" Evolution). I see no reason to eliminate any particular traits. Who determines which traits are the most beneficial?

GB