Darwin's evolution ship 'found'

But your valuation may fail you, or that which you value may turn out to be a lie.

Values change in the real world; that doesn't make them lies. What was precious before may become cheap, and vice versa. In the Library of Congress, there are ornaments that are made of the most precious metals: gold, platinum, palladium, and most precious of all at the time: aluminum. (Think of the world of luxury we live in, that the poorest children can drink from aluminum vessels...and then throw them away!)

"each of us is already a perfectly capable valuer" Not so! Think of Germany and the Jews.

You talk as if the Jews didn't value their own lives, but even if they didn't, we value their lives. That's the reason we consider the Holocaust to be such a monstrous crime.

Most people can't tell the difference between a cubic zirconia and a diamond.

See what I said about aluminum. All that value is in the eye of the beholder. What's a diamond really worth, anyway? When diamonds become cheaper than cubic zirconium, will you admit that their value was not intrinsic?

And those that don't value themselves (either through the circumstances of life or mental impairment) they have no value?

Other people value them. Even unwanted fetuses have people fighting hard for them.

And if you, the observer, die or go away then does your children's value dissapear like Schrodingers cat?

Again, my kids don't depend on me for their value; they are human beings, and hence, they value themselves. Even a newborn infant values itself at some level, else it wouldn't cry for food.

So, OK, I suppose that if there were a person on a desert island, and nobody knew he was there, and nobody who ever knew him was still alive, and he fell into an irreversible coma one day...I suppose then we'd disagree as to his value. If that's the sort of situation your philosophy is optimized for, well, much good may it do you.

Conversely, if there was someone you despised, but you found out that God greatly loved them, would you have second thoughts about your opinion?

No, and here's why. Either God's love is something that accrues to a person based upon some form of merit, or it's a default condition that is the same for everybody. If it's a default condition, then it can't matter to my opinion, because it could not have been otherwise. If His approbation is based upon merit, then either the relevant merits reflect my values (in which case God and I will always agree) or they don't (in which case I probably wouldn't be aware of the merits in the first place).

Now, the Bible says that the key to God's love (or at least, his mercy) is one's belief in the True Religion. So perhaps belief is the merit by which God judges man. If I were to follow God's love (according to Christianity), I'd love people based solely on the litmus test of whether they were Christians. Unfortunately, many of the atrocities throughout human history have been caused by people following exactly that line of thinking. (Not to single out Christians: most religions work this way.)

If you loved someone, but discovered that God actually despised him, would you change your opinion? I wouldn't.

Let me ask you this question. If you discovered that there actually was a God - a great architect of all this astonishing universe - an infinite, almighty, all knowing, personal God who loved you, would you want to know Him if you could?

My study of physics is my method of knowing God. And I do this even without believing He loves me.

***You talk as if the Jews didn't value their own lives, but even if they didn't, we value their lives. That's the reason we consider the Holocaust to be such a monstrous crime.

Your reply presupposes some universally held morality. on what basis do you judge the Holocaust to be monstrous? Your own personal opinion? And if a Nazi disagrees with you, how could you claim you are right and he is wrong?

***All that value is in the eye of the beholder.

And if the beholder is a Nazi and the beheld is a Jew then the Jew has no value?

***I suppose then we'd disagree as to his value. If that's the sort of situation your philosophy is optimized for, well, much good may it do you.

No, respectfully I submit to you this is not about the optimization of my philosophy but about holes in philosophy that, when tested, ultimately proves to be unable to distinguish between right and wrong, moral and immoral.

***Now, the Bible says that the key to God's love (or at least, his mercy) is one's belief in the True Religion. So perhaps belief is the merit by which God judges man. If I were to follow God's love (according to Christianity)

I'm afraid you may have a mistaken notion about God's love. God doesn't love us or give us mercy because we have the right opinion about religion. In fact, the Bible is very clear that God seeks us out, in love, when we would consider Him to be an enemy. Let me quote a few brief verses to back this up...

^"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" - Romans 5

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,... But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved." - Ephesians 2

Now the Bible's message (or True Religion as you said) is important. Think of it like this: A doctor visits a patient who's in terrible, life-threatening condition. That doctor has intense compassion for that patient, wants to cure him and offers the patient a plan of treatment which he knows will cure him. But the patient must accept the treatment. If he refuses (for whatever reason), what can the doctor do? He can't force the patient to accept the treatment against his will.

In the same way God loves everyone, but won't force them to accept the cure for their souls that Jesus gives.

***So perhaps belief is the merit by which God judges man.

Or one could say that trust is basis of friendship and lack of trust is the basis of enmity.

***If I were to follow God's love (according to Christianity), I'd love people based solely on the litmus test of whether they were Christians.

Again, this is a mistaken view. We are taught by Jesus:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." - Matthew 5

***My study of physics is my method of knowing God.

And I believe physics is an excellent way of learning about God, as is biology, mathematics, astronomy etc... But there are certain things that physics can't reveal to you. Physics will never explain to you why your wife loves you. If it can't do such a simple thing then how could it ever give you a full picture of God?

***And I do this even without believing He loves me.

And that is entirely the point. Jesus came, ultimately, to reveal to us that God does love us. Even though many are currently estranged from Him, He has made a reconciliation in the death of His son. Everything that would stand in the way of restoration between God and man has been removed. The war is over, the truce has been signed, but we, like those pockets of Japanese soilders after WWI, continue to fight.

If you do all that you do without believing that He loves you, what could you do believing that the Great Architect of the universe looks down to this infinitely small dot, and sees the Physicist, and LOVES him - with a love that would send Him to a cross to restore a broken relationship?

If there was even a glimmer of truth in that, wouldn't you at least want to check it out? If you could, wouldn't you want to spend an eternity in friendship with the one who invented physics?

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