The Moral Argument for God's Existence

@FMF

There is no onus on you to find my words "reliably true in an overall sense".

You mean there is no onus on you to speak truth in an overall sense.
Or we should just trust you that you speak what is true.

But as you cross examine the one saying there is God, so you can be cross examined also.
Why should we believe your rational that there is no God?

Opting to say "You don't have to" is putting forth something like brute religious dogma.

@sonship said
You mean there is no onus on you to speak truth in an overall sense.
Or we should just trust you that you speak what is true.

I am sharing my honest perspective on these entirely subjective and mostly speculative things. Make of it what you will. This is my approach to your perspectives as well.

FMF,

Is there a certain range or number of years from the time Jesus uttered something to when it was written down that makes it impossible for you to separate out the emendations of the hijackers of His original message?

Are you arguing that because we did not get His speeches on video or tape recorder anything attributed to Him is not reliable?

@sonship said
Why should we believe your rational that there is no God?

I do not believe that "there is no God", as you well know. As for whether you "should" agree with my perspective that no god or gods have revealed themselves to human beings ~ and no instructions have been given and no punishments and rewards have been presented to us with regard to belief and obedience ~ quite simply, you don't have to.

@FMF

Your admiration for the version of him created in the decades and centuries after his death is, of course, your prerogative, but it still is not a "Moral Argument for God's Existence".

You are right that it is two different issues. If you don't like the discussion branching into two or more different issues you should stop introducing red herrings.

@sonship said
Opting to say "You don't have to" is putting forth something like brute religious dogma.

Opting to say that you don't have to replace your subjective views with my subjective views is diametrically opposite to religious dogma. It is about as undogmatic as one can possibly be.

@sonship said
You are right that it is two different issues. If you don't like the discussion branching into two or more different issues you should stop introducing red herrings.

I don't think I have introduced any red herrings.

@sonship said
FMF,

Is there a certain range or number of years from the time Jesus uttered something to when it was written down that makes it impossible for you to separate out the emendations of the hijackers of His original message?

Are you arguing that because we did not get His speeches on video or tape recorder anything attributed to Him is not reliable?

I have no idea whether there was any "original message". The only words we have we written by people creating a new breakaway religion.

@sonship said
Are you arguing that because we did not get His speeches on video or tape recorder anything attributed to Him is not reliable?

"Video or tape recorder"?

@FMF

I have no idea whether there was any "original message". The only words we have we written by people creating a new breakaway religion.

You said the message of Jesus was hijacked.
How do you know how hijacking changed the original message ?

@sonship said
You said the message of Jesus was hijacked.
How do you know how hijacking changed the original message ?

The penny dropped for me when I came to realize that the Book of Revelation is perhaps the biggest hoax in human history ~ for the reasons I have explained before and that we have discussed.

@fmf said
Well, I think so. This is information that deliberation using a moral compass gives us. But there's no guarantee that everyone is going to agree with with a decision one makes or a stance taken.

If such decisions and stances result in lost friends, or in being excluded from a group or drawn towards another, or if they result in one being incarcerated - or even executed - by t ...[text shortened]... ty in which one lives, then that is part of the responsibility that one must take for one's actions.

At least it kind of comes out here.

You believe in nothing.

We are just conscious and have to take responsibility for it and account for ourselves in our society.

And so we have to come up with a series of rationalizations that create a moral compass... Not because the content of our compass is true but because it is expedient.

@philokalia said
At least it kind of comes out here.

You believe in nothing.

I don't believe in supernatural causality and I am not religious.

@philokalia said
We are just conscious and have to take responsibility for it and account for ourselves in our society.

And so we have to come up with a series of rationalizations that create a moral compass... Not because the content of our compass is true but because it is expedient.

Citing conjecture and aspirations about supernatural beings meting out rewards and punishments is "expedient" for those to who subscribe to them. And regardless of how "true" people think all that religious speculation is, it's just another element of the nurture process that refines and educates what our human nature gives us ~ which is a way of perceiving actions and governing our interactions and a need for it.

That is a deflection, FMF!

I pointed out that you believe in absolutely nothing; there is no ultimate right or wrong. There are only moral compasses that we construct to have expedient results. This is what you believe.

You then go on to talk about how there is no God (basically).

Why are you quoting me, then? It isn't anything that I was talking about. I was talking about you.

Are you ashamed to talk of your views on this?