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God And Hell And Free Choice


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[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1732837' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:25 PM']Yet you have little place to speak of moral truth if there be no God truth is subjective so also would be right and wrong. A Muslim has more truth than a atheist, because he at least has listened to the part of truth written on his soul that one God exist. Atheism makes it impossible for absolute moral truth to exist.[/quote]

atheists can believe in absolute moral truth.

Edited by Hassan
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[quote name='Galloglasses' Alt' post='1732843' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:28 PM']On what basis?[/quote]


No idea. I always found it silly. But then again I find most of what Hitchens says silly.

What does "absolute moral truth" mean anyway?

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KnightofChrist

[quote name='Hassan' post='1732834' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:24 PM']But of course that is not a proper comparison. My professor taught me the rules of quantification logic and I have no one to blame but myself for not properly applying those rules. Of course the point was not about the proper punishment for the incident but the nature of the incident itself. I did not choose to reject quantification logic, I had an improper understanding of it.[/quote]

No analogy is complete. And of course you suggested the comparison of God, your professor and mistakes first.


[quote name='Hassan' post='1732834' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:24 PM']In what sense is the truth written on mans heart?[/quote]

That there is a natural need or want of God, like there is a natural need of food and water. Man naturally desires food and water, food and water exist. And all peoples through out time have naturally yearned for God or an after life, thus God and an after life exist.

Man naturally knows that murder is wrong, that stealing is wrong, that most sins are wrong. I could go on but this is off topic to God and Hell and Free will.

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[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1732828' date='Dec 20 2008, 09:15 PM']An idiomatic comment is hardly a proof against the doctrine of the Church.[/quote]


That hardly sounds like an idiomatic comment. Jesus said it... not some random person on the street. If it was an idiomatic comment, Jesus was "figuratively" saying that it would been better if Judas hadn't been born, instead of "literally" never been born. That doesn't even make sense.

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[quote name='bonkers' post='1732836' date='Dec 20 2008, 07:25 PM']Therefoer the apprension of truth can lead anywhere.[/quote]
Your original comment about truth being subjective is nonsensical because it allows for the simultaneous truth of mutually exclusive viewpoints.

In the case you proposed, as I see it, either the Catholic is correct or the Muslim is correct, but both cannot be right at the same time, because Christianity and Islam do not teach the same things about God.

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[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1732847' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:35 PM']No analogy is complete. And of course you suggested the comparison of God, your professor and mistakes first.[/quote]

With reguard to maiing an error of judgement vs rejecting. You extended it to punative actions.



[quote]That there is a natural need or want of God, like there is a natural need of food and water. Man naturally desires food and water, food and water exist. And all peoples through out time have naturally yearned for God or an after life, thus God and an after life exist.

Man naturally knows that murder is wrong, that stealing is wrong, that most sins are wrong. I could go on but this is off topic to God and Hell and Free will.[/quote]

Perhapse, but that is a far cry from everychild having the truths of the Church written on their hearts. I hear the same thing from Muslims. Sayyed Hossein Nasr tells me that before the advent of creating all of humanity confessed that there is no god but Allah and that the Qur'an simply reminds man of what he once knew. Yet I find no more evidence for this than the idea that we are born with the truths of the Church written on our hearts.

Your proof reminds me of one Peter Kreeft floated out that he took from Lewis. That every desire must have a coresponding satisfaction. I don't remember every yearning for the afterlife as a child, it terrafied me. Even when I tried to be religious I deeply wished this life could be the end of it, but simply put my trust in God that He knew what was right. Simply because we have a desire, and it is disputable that all people do desire God and an afterlife, does not guarintee there is any coresponding satisfaction.

Edited by Hassan
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KnightofChrist

[quote name='Hassan' post='1732844' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:30 PM']No idea. I always found it silly. But then again I find most of what Hitchens says silly.

What does "absolute moral truth" mean anyway?[/quote]

A unchanging moral truth. Such as murder is always wrong. I am sorry to say but if there is no God, the 'truth' that murder is immoral would be only opinion, with out God we are mere animals. When an animal kills another animal it is not murder but survival of the fitness. But most atheist today want to reject God but keep for the most part Christian Morality.

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[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1732851' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:41 PM']A unchanging moral truth. Such as murder is always wrong. I am sorry to say but if there is no God, the 'truth' that murder is immoral would be only opinion[/quote]
Sure, but I don't see how morals are any less arbitrary if God exists.

[quote]with out God we are mere animals.[/quote]

sure

[quote]When an animal kills another animal it is not murder but survival of the fitness.[/quote]

sure

[quote]But most atheist today want to reject God but keep for the most part Christian Morality.[/quote]


Right, as Nietzsche pointed out
[i]
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. [size=5]At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."[/size]

It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?" [/i]

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KnightofChrist

[quote name='Hassan' post='1732850' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:41 PM']With reguard to maiing an error of judgement vs rejecting. You extended it to punative actions.[/quote]

This debate is getting old, one who rejects God simply endangers their soul to hell.


[quote name='Hassan' post='1732850' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:41 PM']Perhapse, but that is a far cry from everychild having the truths of the Church written on their hearts. I hear the same thing from Muslims. Sayyed Hossein Nasr tells me that before the advent of creating all of humanity confessed that there is no god but Allah and that the Qur'an simply reminds man of what he once knew. Yet I find no more evidence for this than the idea that we are born with the truths of the Church written on our hearts.

Your proof reminds me of one Peter Kreeft floated out that he took from Lewis. That every desire must have a coresponding satisfaction. I don't remember every yearning for the afterlife as a child, it terrafied me. Even when I tried to be religious I deeply wished this life could be the end of it, but simply put my trust in God that He knew what was right. Simply because we have a desire, and it is disputable that all people do desire God and an afterlife, does not guarintee there is any coresponding desire.[/quote]

By peoples I was focusing more on groups of people but individuals all the same. But both Sayyed Hossein Nasr and Peter Kreeft have the same argument of the existence of God. I find that very interesting.

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[quote name='GodBeyondGod' post='1732848' date='Dec 20 2008, 07:37 PM']That hardly sounds like an idiomatic comment. Jesus said it... not some random person on the street. If it was an idiomatic comment, Jesus was "figuratively" saying that it would been better if Judas hadn't been born, instead of "literally" never been born. That doesn't even make sense.[/quote]
Christ is simply comparing two evils, i.e., the evil of non-existence and the evil of attacking and trying to destroy the One who is Life itself. That said, Christ was, is, and always will be Judas' Creator, and all that He has made is good in its being, while each individual man – as a free and rational person – can choose to do either good or evil with the gift of life he has received from God.

Finally, as one of my professors used to say, you must be careful in reading scripture that you do not isolate a single verse from the "skopos" of the whole economy revealed by God in the sacred texts. Now with that in mind, had the eternal Son of God intended the verse literally it follows that Judas would have ceased to exist at that moment, or that he never would have existed at all, but Jesus kept Judas in being from moment to moment; and Judas – like every other man who has existed or who will exist – has been given ever-being by the Lord's incarnation and paschal mystery.

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KnightofChrist

[quote name='Hassan' post='1732852' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:45 PM']Sure, but I don't see how morals are any less arbitrary if God exists.[/quote]

God is the author of morality. Without His supreme authority there is only mans subjective opinion. Nietzsche also agreed that without God, evil is purely relative.

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[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1732855' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:51 PM']By peoples I was focusing more on groups of people but individuals all the same. But both Sayyed Hossein Nasr and Peter Kreeft have the same argument of the existence of God. I find that very interesting.[/quote]


I didn't know Sayyed had an argument for God's existance.

I don't see the connection between desiring x and x existing.

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[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1732858' date='Dec 20 2008, 10:59 PM']God is the author of morality. Without His supreme authority there is only mans subjective opinion.[/quote]

sure, but what is that author's rational?

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KnightofChrist

[quote name='Hassan' post='1732861' date='Dec 20 2008, 11:06 PM']I didn't know Sayyed had an argument for God's existance.

I don't see the connection between desiring x and x existing.[/quote]

The connection is a natural desiring x and x existing. There is no natural desire for something that does not exist.

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