Posted on 03/19/2010 1:04:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
God is dead, so why should I be good? The answer is that there are no grounds whatsoever for being good. There is no celestial headmaster who is going to give you six (or six billion, billion, billion) of the best if you are bad. Morality is flimflam.
Does this mean that you can just go out and rape and pillage, behave like an ancient Roman grabbing Sabine women? Not at all. I said that there are no grounds for being good. It doesn't follow that you should be bad. Indeed, there are those – and I am one – who argue that only by recognising the death of God can we possibly do that which we should, and behave properly to our fellow humans and perhaps save the planet that we all share. We can give up all of that nonsense about women and gay people being inferior, about fertilised ova being human beings, and about the earth being ours to exploit and destroy.
Start with the fact that humans are naturally moral beings. We want to get along with our fellows. We care about our families. And we feel that we should put our hands in our pockets for the widows and orphans. This is not a matter of chance or even of culture primarily. Humans as animals have gone the route of sociality. We succeed, each of us individually, because we are part of a greater whole and that whole is a lot better at surviving and reproducing that most other animals.
On the one hand, we have suppressed all sorts of common mammalian features that disrupt harmonious living. Imagine trying to run a philosophy class if two or three of the members were in heat.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Thank you oh so very much for your brilliant essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!
Ruse is a simpleton. He is a simpleton who has abused his free will to opt for an anti-free will, anti-mind, anti-conscience, anti-soul, anti-creation mythos that reduces him to a trousered ape at the mercy of unseen forces of nature. Whatever takes place in his material brain is the accidental by-product of the movement of chemicals and/or the firing of neurons.
The question is: Why ought anyone in their right mind listen to the nonsense spouted by an obvious schizophrenic like Ruse?!?
When man chooses to deny what he can’t help but know is true, free will for instance, he falls into stupidity and depravity, for his willful choice is to both deceive himself (stupidity) and to deceive everyone else (depravity).
Michael Ruse is both stupid and depraved.
Hmmmmmmmm
If being born again is a natural evolution of human persons, NOT being born again would be an under evolution... Which means Darwin(and others) had it right and wrong at the same time.. Evolution IS Possible.. but not exactly as with all species.. meaning Jesus taught evolution.. and animals did not evolve but morphed.. Animals morphed into other forms.. in some cases.. but did NOT evolve.. Like domestic cats and dogs.. which men not God made.. or morphed.. they did not evolve..
If some one born again, then, becomes an atheist would that be de-volving?.. or being UNborn-again?.. is it even possible to be UNborn-again?.. Or is being born again a metaphor and not an evolution?..
On the otherhand, you have four fingers and a thumb.. AND I wonder if human creatures are really certain selected "evil angels" that followed Satan in the beginning and are getting a second chance.. thru being tested as a human.. You know; a prodigal son redux.. but that's a wondering for another day I suppose..
Welcome to my sandbox... I don't build sand castles I prefer crashing toy trucks together.. while making crashing noises..
If Mr. Ruse (appropriately named) had bothered to notice that if evolution is true, the fact the leopard runs down the young antelope, tears its skin off and devours it in public demonstrates there is no right or wrong. That is...if evolution were true. I wonder if he feels this way about his children?
INDEED.
When the famine comes . . . perhaps he’ll line up his children and decide which one is most fit, 2nd most fit . . . down to the least fit . . . and provide a feast for the rest with the least fit.
Ruse can snicker now, while he can.
In the end, God gets the last laugh.
Militant atheists have incredibly low standards for morality. Basically you are a “decent person” if you haven’t murdered or raped anyone over the age of 1.
This guy is absolutely evil. No wonder he has such a high opinion of human moral success.
My assertion was that "there is no murder rate among lions." I stand by it.
So ascendent male African lions kill [male?] cubs to ensure their reproductive success. This behavior is not universal to all African lions [I understand the females of the species do not do this]. It seems to me that if this behavior serves a natural end, it is not "murder." By "natural end," here I mean an end (goal or purpose) which is not "willed" by the particular lion [for lions do not "will"]. Rather the behavior in question reflects the execution of a "program" (if I might put it that way) which is inherent in the species, which tends to increase species fitness over time.
Thank you for your correction, GL of Sector 2814; but it does not make Professor Ruse's analogy of lion behavior and Detroit thug behavior [which is self-willed] as equivalent examples of "murder" any stronger, or any truer. It is a false analogy from the get-go; it is moreover a demonstration of fallacious reasoning. For it presupposes an equivalency between two inequivalent things. I.e., African lions and Detroit thugs.
Hmmmmmmm
what hoops the ignorant jump through to fabricate morality out of a vacuum.
Indeed. To jump through hoops, starting nowhere, landing nowhere. Evidently forever.
The literal meaning of the New Latin word, utopia (as coined by the sainted martyr Sir Thomas More), is: NOWHERE.
This is the cost of nihilism, of atheism: You get to exist in a NOWHERE....
Personally, I don't know how that can be done, without putting one's reason and sanity at risk.
Thank you so much for writing, dear brother in Christ!
The
FOOL
has said in his heart ‘there is no God.’
‘Tis a valiant effort to contend with some of them sometimes for those on the fence’s benefit.
Providing one doesn’t get one’s feet or fingers too dirty in the process.
Thanks for your efforts in such regards and for your kind words.
Very interesting and well reasoned observation, dear 'pipe!
If your conclusion is true, then under Darwinist theory, most likely the born-again would develop "fitness" that is lacking in the not-born-again, in such a way that the born-again might "prevail" in "the struggle for survival" (so-called in most reductionist manner) in the end....
But of course such statements are senseless without a clear understanding of what evolution is, and what human nature is. Some people will not even grant that man "has" — or might possibly have — a "nature." In their view, man is just an exquisitely successful set of chemical compounds that has permutated in random fashion over time, and violà!!! — "ecce" THIS "homo."
Of course, the people who say such things must be idiots; because by so saying, they have no basis by which to explain themselves. When they speak, they do not do so as an exquisitely successful set of chemical compounds, but as minds articulating the reality they see. Even such as it may appear to them, in however reduced a form.
Anyhoot, I believe the universe evolves. The things in it evolve, especially including man — God set the Logos of His Creation into a temporal process in the Beginning. The Bible clearly tells us this.
Thank you, dear brother, for your (as usual) thought-provoking ruminations!
Indeed. This is the biblical definition of the nabal, of the FOOL.
The nabal is a fool because he denies the ground on which he MUST, as a human being, stand in order to be a human being.
The concept of nabal is reflected beyond the Bible in pre-Socratic and classical philosophy, in such seminal thinkers as Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. For these thinkers, the condition of "nabal" was a pneumopathological disorder, or we might say a disease of the soul. They called this condition "nosos," or "nosemos." It is indicative of a state of agnoia, the very opposite of nous — that is, of reason, intellect, mind. Implicit in their description is a massive flight from reality and from reason itself. The latter is made explicit in Cicero; he called it the aspernatio rationis, the willful flight from reason, a/k/a contempt for reason.
But many people make very good livings out of this sort of thing, nowadays.
Anyhoot, just a bunch of stuff from recollection that appears on-point to the present discussion.
BTW, I never worry about getting my fingers dirty. I just try to be faithful to my Lord — Jesus Christ, Logos, Alpha and Omega, our Savior, Redeemer, and Final Judge.
God's Name is I AM.
The beginning of Humans or the beginning of Angels?..
I wonder if God made Angels to attend to the Universe?..
OR made the Universe to give Angels something to do?
Surely God did not need a chauffeur, cook or barber...
Surely humans were made for this planet..
God made plants and animals of meat and carbohydrates for obvious reasons..
Both Angels and Humans were and are tested.. "Tested" for spiritual quality control..
Make them, turn them loose, and they will seek their own level of spiritual quality..
Could be why Jesus did Not forbid Sheep Pens.. i.e. John ch 10..
Sheep pens being a self sorting mechanism.. for humans..
And possibly a "Cage" for demons or evil angels..
Hey.. this is fun...
From Saint Thomas Aquinas...
Human philosophy considers creatures as they are in themselves: hence we find different divisions of philosophy according to the different classes of things. But Christian faith considers them, not in themselves, but inasmuch as they represent the majesty of God, and in one way or another are directed to God, as it is said: Of the glory of the Lord his work is full: hath not the Lord made his saints to tell of his wonders? (Ecclus xlii, 16, 17.) Therefore the philosopher and the faithful Christian (fidelis) consider different points about creatures: the philosopher considers what attaches to them in their proper nature: the faithful Christian considers about creatures only what attaches to them in their relation to God, as that they are created by God, subject to God, and the like. Hence it is not to be put down as an imperfection in the doctrine of faith, if it passes unnoticed many properties of things, as the configuration of the heavens, or the laws of motion. And again such points as are considered by philosopher and faithful Christian alike, are treated on different principles: for the philosopher takes his stand on the proper and immediate causes of things; but the faithful Christian argues from the First Cause, showing that so the matter is divinely revealed, or that this makes for the glory of God, or that God’s power is infinite. Hence this speculation of the faithful Christian ought to be called the highest wisdom, as always regarding the highest cause, according to the text: This is your wisdom and understanding before the nations (Deut. iv, 6). And therefore human philosophy is subordinate to this higher wisdom; and in sign of this subordination divine wisdom sometimes draws conslusions from premises of human philosophy. Further, the two systems do not observe the same order of procedure. In the system of philosophy, which considers creatures in themselves and from them leads on to the knowledge of God, the first study is of creatures and the last of God; but in the system of faith, which studies creatures only in their relation to God, the study is first of God and afterwards of creatures; and this is a more perfect view, and more like to the knowledge of God, who, knowing Himself, thence discerns other beings. Following this latter order, after what has been said in the first book about God in Himself, it remains for us to treat of the beings that come from God.
Morality comes from God’s law and that little voice inside of each of us — a conscience.
Lewis is quite admired around here.
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