What is morality?

[Immanuel Can]

Is it possible that Romans 1 is not factually accurate?

Is it possible God is wrong?

If Romans 1 is the word of God, then God is wrong, my friend. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Don't worry...you're not.

I'll stand with God's word, on that one. Even empirically, He's right about that.

[Gary Childress]

Is it possible God is wrong?

If Romans 1 is the word of God, then God is wrong, my friend. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Don't worry...you're not.

I'll stand with God's word, on that one. Even empirically, He's right about that.

So it is your contention then that "EVERYONE who rejects God becomes mentally ill or deranged". Is that the case?

If that were true, should I believe that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are mentally ill or deranged? What about Daniel Dennett, or Bertrand Russell? Were they mentally ill or deranged? Or Carl Sagan? I mean, come on, really?

[Gary Childress]

What about a Tibetan monk who knows what Christianity is but still practices Buddhism? Is he mentally ill and deranged? Is every person in the world who is not Christian "mentally ill" and "deranged"? That's kind of hard to believe. However, if the Bible is the word of God and God is never wrong, then I guess we'd better believe ALL those people in the world are mentally ill or deranged because God might get angry at us for not believing that.

[Gary Childress]

And then there's the talking snake!!!!! OMG. Don't strike me down God! I'm sorry for disbelieving!!!!!

[Immanuel Can]

If Romans 1 is the word of God, then God is wrong, my friend. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Don't worry...you're not.

I'll stand with God's word, on that one. Even empirically, He's right about that.

So it is your contention then that "EVERYONE who rejects God becomes mentally ill or deranged".

It's not my contention. I didn't invent it. It's stated plainly, in Romans 1. But there seem to be degrees and stages listed, too...so not everybody would be as far gone as some, perhaps.

[Gary Childress]

Don't worry...you're not.

I'll stand with God's word, on that one. Even empirically, He's right about that.

So it is your contention then that "EVERYONE who rejects God becomes mentally ill or deranged".

It's not my contention. I didn't invent it. It's stated plainly, in Romans 1. But there seem to be degrees and stages listed, too...so not everybody would be as far gone as some, perhaps.

I see. Is the acuteness of the insanity proportional to how much someone rejects God? For example, are/were Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Bertrand Russel more or less insane than I am? And if they are more insane than I am, in what way? If they are less insane than I am, then does that make me more rejecting of God?

[Gary Childress]

@IC:

And if Romans 1 is the word of God, is it also the word of God that a snake talked to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and that Adam and Eve were made from clay and were the first humans to ever inhabit the Earth?

Is all that true also?

[Immanuel Can]

So it is your contention then that "EVERYONE who rejects God becomes mentally ill or deranged".

It's not my contention. I didn't invent it. It's stated plainly, in Romans 1. But there seem to be degrees and stages listed, too...so not everybody would be as far gone as some, perhaps.

I see. Is the acuteness of the insanity proportional to how much someone rejects God? For example, are/were Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Bertrand Russel more or less insane than I am? And if they are more insane than I am, in what way? If they are less insane than I am, then does that make me more rejecting of God?

This much I can tell you for sure: one way or the other, Dennett, Russell, Hitchens...they all know now. So do Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin and Marx, and every other Atheist that has passed over that line. In that sense, now they have more sanity than they ever had in life. I would hope that for some, it wasn't too late.

All I'm telling you is what Romans 1 tells you. I'm not the Saviour, and I'm not the Judge. I can't tell you how far gone somebody is, or what potential brokenness might bring an ostensibly hard heart closer to the moment of realization. As the Word says, "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart."

To no great surprise, I'm not God.

[Immanuel Can]

@IC:

And if Romans 1 is the word of God, is it also the word of God that a snake talked to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and that Adam and Eve were made from clay and were the first humans to ever inhabit the Earth?

Is all that true also?

Red herring.

Not eating those today.

[Gary Childress]

@IC:

And if Romans 1 is the word of God, is it also the word of God that a snake talked to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and that Adam and Eve were made from clay and were the first humans to ever inhabit the Earth?

Is all that true also?

Red herring.

Not eating those today.

Well, if the other stories aren't true, then why should we think that Romans 1 is, unlike those stories, true? I mean, do you believe in the talking snake, and the story of Adam and Eve, that those stories bear the same truth as the assertion that all who reject God are mentally ill or deranged?

[Immanuel Can]

@IC:

And if Romans 1 is the word of God, is it also the word of God that a snake talked to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and that Adam and Eve were made from clay and were the first humans to ever inhabit the Earth?

Is all that true also?

Red herring.

Not eating those today.

Well, if the other stories aren't true, then why should we think that Romans 1 is, unlike those stories, true?

Not relevant.

If anybody makes two statements one, or both, or neither may be true. But unless they are interdependent statements, the truthfulness of one will not be prevented by any doubts you have about the other.

Nothing said about this issue in Romans 1 demands that you believe Genesis 1 first. You'll have to evaluate Romans 1 on its own merits.

[Gary Childress]

Red herring.

Not eating those today.

Well, if the other stories aren't true, then why should we think that Romans 1 is, unlike those stories, true?

Not relevant.

If anybody makes two statements one, or both, or neither may be true. But unless they are interdependent statements, the truthfulness of one will not be prevented by any doubts you have about the other.

Nothing said about this issue in Romans 1 demands that you believe Genesis 1 first. You'll have to evaluate Romans 1 on its own merits.

Then what makes you believe Romans 1 is true, other than it being written in the Bible? Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your belief that everyone who rejects God is either mentally ill or deranged or else on their way to those things?

[Immanuel Can]

Well, if the other stories aren't true, then why should we think that Romans 1 is, unlike those stories, true?

Not relevant.

If anybody makes two statements one, or both, or neither may be true. But unless they are interdependent statements, the truthfulness of one will not be prevented by any doubts you have about the other.

Nothing said about this issue in Romans 1 demands that you believe Genesis 1 first. You'll have to evaluate Romans 1 on its own merits.

Then what makes you believe Romans 1 is true, other than it being written in the Bible? Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your belief that everyone who rejects God is either mentally ill or deranged or else on their way to those things?

Yes, I find it empirically true. However, in explaining that to somebody who doesn't believe in God, or in pointing him to the evidence, I've found there's a problem: he's already a victim of his own choice, and often can't see it. One has to be willing to believe God, or one is already divorced from the locus of truth.

[Gary Childress]

Not relevant.

If anybody makes two statements one, or both, or neither may be true. But unless they are interdependent statements, the truthfulness of one will not be prevented by any doubts you have about the other.

Nothing said about this issue in Romans 1 demands that you believe Genesis 1 first. You'll have to evaluate Romans 1 on its own merits.

Then what makes you believe Romans 1 is true, other than it being written in the Bible? Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your belief that everyone who rejects God is either mentally ill or deranged or else on their way to those things?

Yes, I find it empirically true. However, in explaining that to somebody who doesn't believe in God, or in pointing him to the evidence, I've found there's a problem: he's already a victim of his own choice, and often can't see it. One has to be willing to believe God, or one is already divorced from the locus of truth.

But isn't it true of any religion that if someone doesn't believe that religion is the truth, then they will have difficulty believing all its claims are true? I mean, do you know for certain if you talk to the Dalai Lama that the Dalai Lama is the mentally ill and deranged one of the two of you? Or is the Dalai Lama a Christian? Might a Buddhist not also believe that all Christians are mentally ill or deranged based on the differences between Buddhist tenets and Christian ones?

AND

If you find it "empirically" true, can you cite a source that would count as empirical evidence that everyone in the world who rejects God is "mentally ill" or "deranged"? Or should I just take your word for it? Because quite honestly, I find the idea that everyone who rejects God is mentally ill or deranged difficult to reconcile with the fact that only 23% of American adults have a mental health diagnosis. I mean, that seems to be a widely agreed-upon statistic. Am I to think that those 23% are all the people who reject God and that the remaining 77% are all people who have accepted God and therefore the Bible?

[Immanuel Can]

Then what makes you believe Romans 1 is true, other than it being written in the Bible? Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your belief that everyone who rejects God is either mentally ill or deranged or else on their way to those things?

Yes, I find it empirically true. However, in explaining that to somebody who doesn't believe in God, or in pointing him to the evidence, I've found there's a problem: he's already a victim of his own choice, and often can't see it. One has to be willing to believe God, or one is already divorced from the locus of truth.

But isn't it true of any religion that if someone doesn't believe that religion is the truth then they will have difficulty believing all its claims are true?

You don't know whether or not Genesis 1 is true. But even if you doubt it, it will have no impact on whether or not Romans 1 is speaking the truth. They aren't interdependent claims. They stand on what they say.

Now, if you believe that Genesis was authored by Moses, which is the conventional view, and if you believe that Romans was written by Paul, then you've got two different authors, writing separated by over a thousand years. So they would be independent authors, and you'd have no justification to doubt the writings of Paul based on the writings of Moses.

Only if you are prepared to believe that they had one ultimate Author -- that God wrote both, working through those authors -- would the writings of Moses have any impact on your credibility of the writings of Paul: but if you believe God is the ultimate author, then you no longer have grounds to disbelieve.

So either way, you're cooked on that.

If you find it "empirically" true, can you cite a source...

You're missing the point. The Source is God. You don't get more authority than that.

Now, I personally find the progression in Romans 1 very believable, based on my own experience with people. You can see it in all kinds of cases...well, one can see it when they're prepared to see it. But cynics get nothing, of course. They're already sliding down the continuum you see described in Romans 1, and thus aren't in a moral or epistemic position to recognize the facts. They're more likely to be in denial and in convulsions of self-justification and resentment, than looking at the facts.

You can choose to believe Romans 1 or not. But there are consequences to that choice.