If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

[Dalek Prime]

Funny how God and his disciples' writings have only reached this dustspeck outpost of the universe. But if anyone knows of copies in distant galaxies, please correct me...

And how do you know this, do you have some information about what other intelligent species in the universe may have heard? Until you know something, you should say nothing.

Well, you clearly have the ISBN number for the Andromeda Galaxy version then. Would you give it please?

[thedoc]

If that is so, then ask yourself this: "Why should you trust them?"

I trust them more than I trust the myths of men who share my sensory limitations.

It's all relative. You seem to be caught up in absolutes and dismiss relativities as nothing. In truth, relativities appear to be everything for all life. This "absolute truth", if existent, is not something you can hope to know. It would be akin to teaching a cockroach QM equations - insufficient equipment.

Survival is truth, in the real world, not in the world of idealistic philosophers.

In the year of our Lord 1432, there arose a grievous quarrel among the brethren over the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse. For thirteen days the disputation raged without ceasing. All the ancient books and chronicles were fetched out, and wonderful and ponderous erudition such as was never before heard of in this region was made manifest. At the beginning of the fourteenth day, a youthful friar of goodly bearing asked his learned superiors for permission to add a word, and straightway, to the wonderment of the disputants, whose deep wisdom he sore vexed, he beseeched them to unbend in a manner coarse and unheard-of and to look in the open mouth of a horse and find answer to their questionings. At this, their dignity being grievously hurt, they waxed exceeding wroth; and, joining in a mighty uproar, they flew upon him and smote him, hip and thigh, and cast him out forthwith. For, said they, surely Satan hath tempted this bold neophyte to declare unholy and unheard-of ways of finding truth, contrary to all the teachings of the fathers. After many days more of grievous strife, the dove of peace sat on the assembly, and they as one man declaring the problem to be an everlasting mystery because of a grievous dearth of historical and theological evidence thereof, so ordered the same writ down.

Typical of philosophers, to trust the mind rather than empirical observation.

[Greta]

If that is so, then ask yourself this: "Why should you trust them?"

I trust them more than I trust the myths of men who share my sensory limitations.

It's all relative. You seem to be caught up in absolutes and dismiss relativities as nothing. In truth, relativities appear to be everything for all life. This "absolute truth", if existent, is not something you can hope to know. It would be akin to teaching a cockroach QM equations - insufficient equipment.

Survival is truth, in the real world, not in the world of idealistic philosophers.

My point was that the claims of the ancient superstitious patriarchs that inform Immanuel are less trustworthy to me than my senses.

Re: your post, any one aspect of reality can be referred to as "truth". What is the ultimate truth of the survival of an organism when each is effectively a minuscule bit of very temporary fizzing on our 4.6 billion year-old planet's wet surface? What is the ultimate truth of death when numerous colonies of microbes within continue to thrive? It's all very relative, depending on the scale one observes - with particular perspective pertaining to the numerous gradations of organisation between microscopic and cosmic scales.

[thedoc]

I trust them more than I trust the myths of men who share my sensory limitations.

It's all relative. You seem to be caught up in absolutes and dismiss relativities as nothing. In truth, relativities appear to be everything for all life. This "absolute truth", if existent, is not something you can hope to know. It would be akin to teaching a cockroach QM equations - insufficient equipment.

Survival is truth, in the real world, not in the world of idealistic philosophers.

My point was that the claims of the ancient superstitious patriarchs that inform Immanuel are less trustworthy to me than my senses.

Re: your post, any one aspect of reality can be referred to as "truth". What is the ultimate truth of the survival of an organism when each is effectively a minuscule bit of very temporary fizzing on our 4.6 billion year-old planet's wet surface? What is the ultimate truth of death when numerous colonies of microbes within continue to thrive? It's all very relative, depending on the scale one observes - with particular perspective pertaining to the numerous gradations of organisation between microscopic and cosmic scales.

The claims of superstitious patriarchs have endured for over 2,000 years, have the observations of your senses endured that long?

[Greta]

The claims of superstitious patriarchs have endured for over 2,000 years, have the observations of your senses endured that long?

We believed that slavery was good for a thousand years or more too. What of our puny mortal moralities?

My observations were not framed in a vacuum but have been shaped by the knowledge and instincts accumulated by humanity (and other species) for far longer than the Abrahamic myths, and spanned more of the globe than just the middle east at a certain time.

Whatever, all of my interpretations are a product of human culture, as are yours. We just prefer different parts of the culture.

[Dubious]

The claims of superstitious patriarchs have endured for over 2,000 years, have the observations of your senses endured that long?

Blame human gullibility for its longevity which slowly started eroding as soon as the printing presses started operating forcing the future into a new age of literacy and critical thinking which even put the Holy Bible under scrutiny.

[Dubious]

Funny how God and his disciples' writings have only reached this dustspeck outpost of the universe.

...could it be that god couldn't find enough idiots on any other planet to join the cause? Maybe god understood that the human brain being one of the most complex objects in the universe is easily confused. I mean once it gets to know one part, it forgets about the rest for a long time avoiding the paths less traveled...by hey, I'm just speculating and confess to having major problems with road-maps myself! To further compound the felony, I never ask for directions!

[Immanuel Can]

Something being either this or that is not an argument.

You are either alive or dead. You are either pregnant or not. The light switch is on or off.

Sometimes it's the only right argument.

Similarly, a thing can only be legitimized or unlegitimized. If it's "a bit" legitimized, then it's shown to be legitimate. If it's "not adequately" legitimized, then it's not legitimized.

how some things work. Even if you don't like that, you'll just have to live with it. It's just reality.

Why not show it if it’s so easy?

I did. You might have to go back and read the ensuing paragraphs.

I presume, though judge is a better word...

Judging is done on evidence. So you have evidence there's no God? And it would be...what?

You, on the other hand...

You don't know me. You know some of the things I think, but you don't know why I think them. Yet you tell me why you think I must think them. Presumption again.

Atheism does not require or even desire the kind of certainties theists lay claim to,...

That's good. Because it would really seem that Atheism can't have any certainty.

If, however, we leave open the possibility that God exists, and take that possibility seriously, then it is not hard to legitimize anything He commands or intends as the information we need on morality. If a Supreme Being said "Do X," or if "X" conforms to His character, then "X" is moral. QED.

There's the "showing" you were looking for above.

If we leave open the possibility that Gods exists then why presume, as you invariably do, that it has to be the god of the bible?

It's possible to discuss that. There are reasons for thinking it is. But that's stage 2 of any discussion. Stage 1 is surely being open even slightly to the possibility God exists at all.

To you...

Again...presumption. And projection. You suppose me to be the embodiment of straw men you've cooked up in your own mind, thin and trite versions of Theism you imagine you already know and have dismissed. But me you do not know.

If secular morality which so vehemently condemned Hitler ...

Please show the "secular morality" that, as you say, "vehemently condemned" Hitler. Don't just show some person who did that; explain the rationale. Give me the particular secular morality that demanded secularists must condemn Hitler, and show on what rational and necessary grounds it did so.

...the outrage to be so universal....

False. Hitler was very popular in many quarters. It was not universal at all. But you must surely know that, if you know any of the history at all.

Your argument, as I see it, amounts to this – no matter how ethical one may be if you don’t believe in god as expounded in the bible, you aren’t truly human...

I did not say that. You did.

...commonsense laws of reason...

Name one.

[Immanuel Can]

It's all relative. You seem to be caught up in absolutes and dismiss relativities as nothing. In truth, relativities appear to be everything for all life. This "absolute truth", if existent, is not something you can hope to know. It would be akin to teaching a cockroach QM equations - insufficient equipment.

"It's all relative," you say. Is that absolutely true?

You see the relativists paradox: if it's true, then relativism is false. If relativism is then false, then by definition it's not true.

Either way, relativism has to be false -- because of its own claim, not because of anyone's opinion.

[Immanuel Can]

Science is survival,

Actually, it's not. Science is an episteme. It does not mandate that you or I must be one of the entities that survive. Many species have not. Science itself tells us that.

if atheism promotes survival

Don't worry: it doesn't. Statistically, it promotes death. 148 million of them in one century alone. At that rate, the human race itself would soon become extinct. Thank God it hasn't continued...yet.

But "don't count your chickens before they're hatched," as they say. The world's looking grimmer by the day.

[Greta]

It's all relative. You seem to be caught up in absolutes and dismiss relativities as nothing. In truth, relativities appear to be everything for all life. This "absolute truth", if existent, is not something you can hope to know. It would be akin to teaching a cockroach QM equations - insufficient equipment.

"It's all relative," you say. Is that absolutely true?

You see the relativists paradox: if it's true, then relativism is false. If relativism is then false, then by definition it's not true.

Either way, relativism has to be false -- because of its own claim, not because of anyone's opinion.

The relativity between things is not a school of thought, a notion to be debated, it's just what reality is to our perception as beings on the surface of a massive sphere of rocky, watery and organic material orbiting a much larger sphere of gradually exploding plasma, which in turn orbits a much larger sphere again, this one largely comprising of gravitationally distorted spacetime, and so on.

[Immanuel Can]

The relativity between things is not a school of thought, a notion to be debated,..

Is that TRUE?

[Harbal]

Is that TRUE?

If Greta said it then it's true. Not that you know anything about truth, you Christian.

[Immanuel Can]

Is that TRUE?

If Greta said it then it's true.

If it's TRUE
Then Relativism must be FALSE.

Relativism says that everything is only "relatively" true, not absolutely so.
Since what she says is therefore not absolute, then it is only partial. There must, at the very least, be exceptions to it. Otherwise, it would be an absolute truth.
But since it is not an absolute truth, that means that Relativism is not absolutely true: i.e., it's sometimes false. And that means that as a universal claim, it's false.

But if what she says is NOT true, then her statement "relativism is true" must be false.

Again, the conclusion is rationally inescapable: it's false. It is, either way.

[Harbal]

Is that TRUE?

If Greta said it then it's true.

If it's TRUE
Then Relativism must be FALSE.

Relativism says that everything is only "relatively" true, not absolutely so.
Since what she says is therefore not absolute, then it is only partial. There must, at the very least, be exceptions to it. Otherwise, it would be an absolute truth.
But since it is not an absolute truth, that means that Relativism is not absolutely true: i.e., it's sometimes false. And that means that as a universal claim, it's false.

But if what she says is NOT true, then her statement "relativism is true" must be false.

Again, the conclusion is rationally inescapable: it's false. It is, either way.

If you say so, Immanuel. I'm just taken aback that you responded to my post, I was convinced you were ignoring me.