[Nittany Dodgers]

Originally Posted by randilover

No, I don’t think you have.

That's because you are being purposefully obtuse. What part of agree to disagree don't you understand?

Originally Posted by randilover

You are arguing with me that there is no universally applicable definition of good. You are telling me that it is up to a society or a culture to determine if it is good to eradicate minorities. If not, what are you appealing to?

I am arguing there is no universal arbitrary definition of good based on a relgious belief system. I am arguing there is a methodology to determine what is good and bad that can be applied universally. Will every society/culture come to the same conclusion following the same methodology on all of the details? Probably not, but that does not justify a society from attempting to wipe out a minority.

Originally Posted by randilover

What beliefs were false? They just lost the war.

Are you being serious here? Are the "aryan" truly a superior race to the Jews? Were the Aryans really the master race of the world? Were the Jews really the cause of all of the problems in 1930s Germanic society?

Originally Posted by randilover

The problem with your present world view is this: You view is that you are a good person, living with a scientific framework or a naturalistic framework, you will never be able to logically answer why you should live your way and not any other way.

I can explain it and I have. You refuse to acknowledge it as a logical explanation because it does not fit your own narrow world view.

Originally Posted by randilover

I would make an argument that it does, at least to some extent, testify to its truth. If the fruit is good, the tree must be as well. Doesn’t logic conform to reality? But see above. Again, the Christian never says you cannot be good, it only says you have no reason to be good (which then means you have no reason not to be bad). If the evidence of something is validity of it’s truth, you have to weight that into the proof of its being right, much the same way you would look at most of the choices me make every day.

That argument fails when it is noted there are a multitude of other peaceful, successful, "good" by any measure (other than the religion the hold to) societies that are not Christian. As the same evidence you just gave credence for proving Christianity proves the validity of their various religions.

Originally Posted by randilover

The Christian never decides everyone else must be Christian. I’m not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean as it pertains to eternal life/heaven, or just that everyone has to act like a Christian no matter what? As for the first part, the exclusivity we have discussed and doesn’t really discount any of it’s claims, and I’m not sure the second part is true. Just because you sleep in the garage does not make you a car. Making someone act like a Christian is not making him or her to be Christian.

Explain the history of Evangelicallism, and the conversionism movement more specifically, then.

Originally Posted by randilover

That was Bertrand Russell, I think. There’s two parts to this. This is why I always say it’s a moral problem, not an evidential one. If it were an evidential one, once the evidence was shown, there’d be no argument. The problem is that that evidence is never compelling enough. You may assume that one day it will be, but by doing show you have showed your hand that it doesn’t at this point, yet you desire to do just that. The problem, from the biblical perspective, is that it isn’t a lack of evidence, it’s a suppression of the truth. See, without "evidence" of God, man can do what he wants and make up his own rules. So he can determine when life begins, who’s worthy of living and dying, his own rules for his behavior, etc. There’s a vested interest in man to keep God out of the equation.

If God really exists, why would I have a vested interest in ignoring him? I lose out on the whole eternal life thing? So why would I want to do that? Life would be so much easier for me if I just believed. All my decisions would be easier. And I could live my life knowing when I died I'd just be going to heaven. What a load off my mind that would be. Tell me what I have to gain by ignoring God? The problem is I will not blinding accept something I find to be utterly rediculous. If this was any other topic of conversation, you would agree with me (not on the utterly rediculous part). If I wanted you to believe something only on the evidence that I was convinced of it, you would laugh in my face.

Originally Posted by randilover

Ever hear of Anthony Flew? The world’s most prolific atheist and he recently came forward saying atheism no longer offers the answers to the questions life gives. It’s been said it would be as if Billy Graham announced he was an atheist. Now, here’s a completely rational man, who as time has gone by has debated the historicirty of Jesus and the resurrection, thought through all the issues, etc., and he comes out thinking differently. He’s not a Christian, I hear it’s more of a Deist point of view. But theistic nonetheless.

Here's the difference between you and I. My philisophical view of the world is not dependant on what others think. It does not convince me just for you to say some smart guy said something. No, I did not know who Anthony Flew was (and all I know of him now was what I gleaned of him in 5 minutes of googling him so I at least knew who he was).

Deism is actually a philosophy I don't have much of a problem with. I know you won't like the source, but the first line of description from the Wikipedia site is "Historical and modern Deism is defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God." That sounds good to me. Erasing the reliance of revalation and tradition reduces most of the issues I have with modern Christianity. Besides, if I had to label myself, I'd label myself agnostic vs. atheistic, only because I am convinces I will never be able to determine if there is a God in my lifetime, and quite honestly, it is not all that important for me to do so.

Originally Posted by randilover

The second would be that it doesn’t work that way. Belief works on faith, which is inherently based on something that isn’t necessarily an evidence issue, although not irrational. It’s not a destination that the true Christian person seeks after, it’s not a state of mind, and it’s not a location that is important to him. It’s a relationship, of which faith is the fuel. There’s not much good in saying why is it faith based. That’s the way it is. It’d be like asking why your car has to run on gasoline. Ask all you want, you’re not going to get to work without fuel in the tank.

I totally 100% agree with you that belief is dependant on faith. That is a much easier answer for me to swallow than page after page of trying to convince me that science is on your side as well.

Originally Posted by randilover

I would say the opposite. A man who is at the end can look back at the whole and judge it’s value better than the man in the midst of it. Its why near death experiences can be so life changing for people. It puts all the desires you encounter on a daily basis in perspective of the whole of time, not just the immediate future. If death was near, the things that are truly valuable become even more so, the things that meant little will not even be thought of. It’s why funerals are defined by eulogies that sound like, "He was a faithful husband." Or, "He was a great father," and never, "He could handle an adjustable wrench better than anyone I knew." Death is the great equalizer. Whether you believe is a life after death or not, we’d do well to mark the perspective of someone nearer to death, talking of hopes or regrets, than one in the middle of it with no pending fate.

First off, near death and death bed are far from the same thing. Near death experiences are a totally different ball of wax. I don't know how many people you have been in contact with on their death bed. I have been in contact with only a few that I knew personally, and a number more in a brief stint as a volunteer in an "old folks home" as we used to call them. None of them would I look to for any philisophical insight.

Originally Posted by randilover

That I am still no less off than you are.

Is that really the best you can come up with?