https://www.bethinking.org/bible/old-testament-mass-killings

And you support that these aren't interpretations? It gives all kind of alternative explanations and you present them as facts of urging to kill others. Ok.

There are two ways you can defend God:

1. Prove that the genocide recorded in the Bible didn't occur at all. Finish the opponent before fae even starts :chin:

2. Prove that the mass murder was justified in the sense good.

I'd like to see which you pick and how might you furnish the relevant proof.

But why to defend God especially since I don't believe in any God?

I don't doubt that many massive killings occurred in the "name" of religions. But that's what people did as to excuse their evil behavior and achieve their personal goals (greed etc).

All I'm saying is that God and religions offer a "moral" base which is still necessary to societies. Despite all the bad things happened from people who use them for evil,still the good things that brought to human societies overcome the bad ones.
And without any God-ish moral system things would might be worse. I m not even sure about it. Just saying my opinion.
It is as simple as that. Just many atheists turn into bulls when they hear anything about "God and religions" and accuse them for every human harm that show up throughout history. I have met many of them in my real life so their stubbornness doesn't surprise me. It's the new trend to be Atheist nowadays and just make fun and accuse others who believe.

Interlocutors should agree with you as to be genuine? — dimosthenis9

This is an example of what I mean. Of course not - you agreeing with me is not important. It's your approach. It seems like you are taking the piss. If you are serious then my apologies. I suggest you embrace a religion as soon as you can since you are already mounting a standard apologist's argument and style. :joke:

But why to defend God especially since I don't believe in any God?

I don't doubt that many massive killings occurred in the "name" of religions. But that's what people did as to excuse their evil behavior and achieve their personal goals (greed etc).

All I'm saying is that God and religions offer a "moral" base which is still necessary to societies. Despite all the bad things happened from people who use them for evil,still the good things that brought to human societies overcome the bad ones.
And without any God-ish moral system things would might be worse. I m not even sure about it. Just saying my opinion.
It is as simple as that. Just many atheists turn into bulls when they hear anything about "God and religions" and accuse them for every human harm that show up throughout history. I have met many of them in my real life so their stubbornness doesn't surprise me. It's the new trend to be Atheist nowadays and just make fun and accuse others who believe. — dimosthenis9

https://www.bethinking.org/bible/old-testament-mass-killings

And you support that these aren't interpretations? It gives all kind of alternative explanations and you present them as facts of urging to kill others. Ok. — dimosthenis9

WTF? :chin:

Exactly. :sweat:

Well, the question is about you unless you're nothing! Nevertheless, anekantavada - different strokes for different folks. — TheMadFool

Well my point is that I (and no person in history, probably) have never seen an example of nothing before and I doubt that nothing ever existed - since it would need to exist to 'be' nothing, hence not nothing but something- hey, this sounds like one of your capers... For me the argument is this... something. The end. :joke:

Well my point is that I (and no person in history, probably) have never seen an example of nothing before and I doubt that nothing ever existed - since it would need to exist to 'be' nothing, hence not nothing but something- hey, this sounds like one of your capers... For me the argument is this... something. The end. :joke: — Tom Storm

There's another principle in Buddhist philosophy, that of 'prapanca', meaning 'conceptual proliferation'. It is literally 'becoming entangled in thought.' — Wayfarer

Join the club! :joke:

It seems like you are taking the piss. — Tom Storm

You accused me of not being genuine interlocutor and I m the one who takes the piss also?! Ok.

I suggest you embrace a religion as soon as you can since you are already mounting a standard apologist's argument and style. — Tom Storm

That's not gonna happen.

Since 180proof got it and agreed on what you said. Can you explain that "wtf" to me also?
What I wrote comes to contradiction with the link that provides "possible explanations" for why the genocide occurred?
At which point of my previous posts I denied the massive killings that happened in the name of God?? I just say that they were cause of interpretations that people used for their evil. And not cause Christianity, for example, refers to "kill others".

You accused me of not being genuine interlocutor and I m the one who takes the piss also? — dimosthenis9

No - I'm saying that you may not be genuine because you appear to be taking the piss.

That's not gonna happen. — dimosthenis9

You'll be a lot happier given that you are so concerned about the implications of plummeting world morality if belief in God ends. You can help avoid this disaster by restoring belief in God through, for instance, getting on a philosophy forum and posing dilemmas about the decline in the belief in God and how this is an alarming phenomenon. Or something similar.

No - I'm saying that you may not be genuine because you appear to be taking the piss — Tom Storm

That's based in your opinion that I got pissed of course. Which has never happened.

You can help avoid this disaster by restoring belief in God through, for instance, getting on a philosophy forum and posing dilemmas about the decline in the belief in God and how this is an alarming phenomenon. Or something similar. — Tom Storm

Thank you for the sarcasm .You surely are a genuine interlocutor.

At this point on the existence wave, we have more propensity (1) to be than not to be. Whether when the wave turns round it will eat up what is, or simply carry on making things be but in mirror image, we'll be too old to find out.

(1) Propensity is a nice word I found in Popper.

I don't agree. The problem is not lack of evidence. The problem is belief in the face of the evidence.

It is belief that the wine is blood, that the bread is flesh. It is belief that god would have you sacrifice your eldest son. It is belief that women cannot drive, that guns bring peace, that homosexuality is unnatural.

It's the basic dishonesty of religion that renders it culpable. — Banno

This is a rejection of a religion that holds to those views you have specified, but not of all religion. By analogy, a government that prohibits women from driving, advocates gun ownership for peace, and that forbids homosexuality is a government you might disagree with, but it is not a good argument that there is a lack of evidence to believe in the value of government. You are simply pointing out those things you'd rather not exist in your ideal government.

This is to say that you can hand select the worst qualities of religion to build the weakest strawman imaginable, but it's just as possible to build a steelman, choosing only the best qualities. It would seem the inclination would be to form a religion that didn't violate all you held dear, considering the goal is to establish what you hold as the ideal.

Well no if you believe in rebirth you have already a reason to "act good". But most people who believe in rebirth don't they follow some kind of religion already? Don't know, just asking.
And well then, we would have to convince more people start believing on rebirth. But without any God for that, wouldn't that be difficult to happen? — dimosthenis9

I don't know any religion that fulfils that. It would be a kind of Hinduism without gods or Buddhism with souls.

What I'm very interested in, what would you call someone who doesn't believe in gods but in souls?

There are two ways you can defend God:

1. Prove that the genocide recorded in the Bible didn't occur at all. Finish the opponent before fae even starts :chin:

2. Prove that the mass murder was justified in the sense good.

I'd like to see which you pick and how might you furnish the relevant proof. — TheMadFool

So there was a fox, and he saw these delicious grapes, but they were just out of reach, so he jumped and jumped to try to get them. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to get a single grape. He walked away and said aloud "Who cares! They were sour anyway."

Such is the fable of sour grapes. You don't get what you want, so you claim it wasn't worth getting anyway. It explains part of the way humans behave and gives us some insight.

Archeological evidence has established there never have been talking foxes, and even among non-talking foxes, we've never seen one that has shown such complex psychological behavior that would make us think foxes are able to convince themselves that things they cannot obtain really aren't worth obtaining anyway. In short, after some degree of analysis, it turns out the story is complete bullshit, and it's embarrassing really that adults might have entertained the thought that foxes do as depicted in the story.

Ergo, the entire story of the fox and the grapes should therefore be rejected, right?

If this conclusion is wrong, then why is biblical literalism something I should be interested in?

180 Proof and Dimosthenes seem agreed that religious sources get misused for bad. Taking several steps back I note the etymology of "god" is in "to which or whom a libation is poured", "bhaga" or "bog" "to which or whom offering is made" (cognate with "beg" ask an offering, "bag" container to bring an offering, "big" generous enough for an offering), "dieu" and "diable" share a root meaning some big sort of spirit, "theos" is law giver.

To the old Greeks law giving was about the basis on which natural phenomena would settle down between periods of upset. Some extended that to mores but only in the sense that they saw themselves as part of the world. Their relationship with that god or with the gods plural, which were deliberately portrayed in fanciful terms so as to try (unsuccessfully) to not become intense, was metaphorical and not personal.

Epicurus warned most poignantly against superstition.

I wish a concept would catch on which (I seem to remember) actually existed in my young day, namely to be agnostic (usually calling oneself atheist) but look for reasons to base one's moral outlook on wholesome secular principles.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics are mainly mental ideas for thinking. I don't think his attitude to "god" or "gods" was anywhere near as "moralistic" as has usually become commonplace since.

The merest mention of "god" seems to lead most people to this moralistic concept which doesn't warm, doesn't encourage, it just takes away from us. I sense a lot of people are getting "triggered". Using the three stages of perception Husserl identified occurring BEFORE we reach the judgment phase, we could fortify ourselves in the face of the "meme" aimed at our habitus, by revaluing as Nietzsche calls for.

Nietzsche who lived in the run up to Kaiser Bill times poignantly shows us a man with a lantern looking for "god" in daylight saying "we have killed him you and I" meaning the oppressing bourgeoisie. A "superman" or "overman" (English prepositions don't get it right) is someone that has to rise out of oppressing precisely by becoming their own free self. (The overgrowth in fundamentalism was a later counter-misreaction to the scene around Kaiser Bill whose supporters had emphasized how Christian they were.) I sense there is a lot of quasi-indexicality in Nietzsche - speaking in the voice of his characters, often without speech marks (some commentators hold Hume and Plato are doing this too).

Respect the other (e.g family members or employees) enough to leave them free as ends to themselves, and not your means to use only; don't go as far as despoiling the jungle or plain that helps you eat or the earth that helps you build.

What and who is, calls me to respect it / them: my own original version of is = ought. Apparently Hume was an ironist. Hume was probably only saying we won't catch many people inferring (to any partial degree) from is to ought because that's how people around him were, and wasn't laying down a categorical entailment in the opposite direction.

Virtues = going equipped.

Morals are to do with morale (Julian Baggini says).

When we de-intensify both morals and the optional extra religion, the latter might simply be a non-heavy going personal relationship, singly whether sometimes in the company of fellows or not. A god worth its salt doesn't need "defending" in the way usually thought. I have lots of affinity with honest atheistic agnostics. That my own discovered "redefining" of "god" differs from all those I meet reassures me (and amuses them). Thus, any existence or absence of mere religion around individuals left to choose (rather than pressured by agitators), ought to become a non-issue.

Sociology of religion often finds itself cataloguing one or more tribes of not harmless enough eccentrics who claim that morality is "what we do" and take a dim view of everybody that doesn't want to belong to them.

I think that if Dimosthenes9 decouples and unlinks religion from morality, and vice versa, he can hope that people will look for morals that boost morale from all wholesome sources no matter what the badge or the brand name.

So what you suggest is [...] — dimosthenis9

... that religious texts don't define morals, aren't authoritative, and the diverse gods aren't around, are useless/irrelevant in the matter.

It's on us, always was, so we better cultivate and nurture moral awareness.

Prescribed rule-following maintained by hope for eternal bliss (reward, safety), and fear of damnation forevermore (punishment, threat), doesn't make a person moral, though it could make them scary/dangerous. It’s merely motivated self-interest. Sure, if there are persons out there that would misbehave if not for a virtual leash (hope for, or fear of, otherworldly consequences), then, by all means, they should remain leashed.

Short answer: Biblical literalism is a sine qua non for Christianity. Miracles, the smoking gun for God, don't mean anything otherwise.

Long answer: There's a dilemma for Christians which is that either the Bible is a metaphor or it's literal. If it's a metaphor, miracles are impotent. If it's literal, explain how genocide is good.

My only long guess is Logic. That vast majority of people worldwide reach to a high average intellectual level, as to think Logically and realize that acting "good" when you live in a society is firstly for your own benefit!

But first I doubt that vast majority of people will ever come to that level and second even if they do, thinking Logically maybe isn't enough at the end at all for convincing someone to be "good". — dimosthenis9

I find it fascinating to ponder the many usages of the term "square":

- in logic - "it squares" (is consistent)
- in aesthetics - geometry, which assists calculations and illustrates relationships
- in epistemology - stemming from the above, and consistency again
- in ethics of relationships, "have you squared it with the boss" and such like.

Imposing zero sum terms is bad interhuman arithmetic.

The opposite of a right is a wrong. Do they realise that, when something is stolen from them?

Since 180proof got it and agreed on what you said. Can you explain that "wtf" to me also?
What I wrote comes to contradiction with the link that provides "possible explanations" for why the genocide occurred?
At which point of my previous posts I denied the massive killings that happened in the name of God?? I just say that they were cause of interpretations that people used for their evil. And not cause Christianity, for example, refers to "kill others". — dimosthenis9

First off, my apologies if you didn't like the way I phrased my response - WTF? The What The F**k expression carries a deep meaning for me. It represents WTFery - claims, attitudes, beliefs, emotions, whathaveyou, that make zero sense to the listener/reader but...take heed...not necessarily because the claims, attitudes, beliefs, emotions, etc. are inherently nonsensical.

You want to explain the genocide as chronicled in the Bible in a way that's coherent with our understanding of God and what morality is. Why else would you want to explain it?

If so, only two choices for you:

1. Show that the mass murders didn't actually occur. Hanover probably thinks its a metaphor.

2. Show that offing people en masse is good.

What's your move?

Texts deliberately made semi-nonsensical are only authoritative in combination with accompanying teaching of meanings, and if that doesn't deserve our freely discerning respect we shouldn't give our loyalty.

Miracles are only ever relative, and have been far overblown: the recent apologetists have misled the public on this point among others.

All I'm saying is that God and religions offer a "moral" base which is still necessary to societies ... Just many atheists turn into bulls when they hear anything about "God and religions" and accuse them for every human harm that show up throughout history. I have met many of them in my real life so their stubbornness doesn't surprise me. It's the new trend to be Atheist nowadays and just make fun and accuse others who believe. — dimosthenis9

Rabble rousers have been setting up gullible unthinking "believers" with simplistic caricatures of "belief". I've followed this for two thirds of a century, and researched about the period before. Just sidestep all the bad manoeuvres on all sides. As for anomials, if you can't ignore them (for example if they are brazenly making an excuse for stealing) challenge them regarding stealing, in public so that others will understand. Morale-supporting morals are public property and don't belong to eccentric ghetto dwellers and their proselytisers. Encourage your peers to become honest agnostics.

You want to explain the genocide as chronicled in the Bible in a way that's coherent with our understanding of God and what morality is. Why else would you want to explain it?

If so, only two choices for you:

1. Show that the mass murders didn't actually occur. Hanover probably thinks its a metaphor.

2. Show that offing people en masse is good.

What's your move? — TheMadFool

Oh no no, my apologies then that I didn't get the deep meaning of your "wtf" argument! Now I do, and seems perfectly appropriate to use it now in what are you saying. You give me 2 choices for an issue that I don't doubt!

I explain AGAIN that for me God and religions offer people a moral base as to act "good".Is it the best moral base? For sure no!
Of course throughout history mass murders happened in the name of God. I don't question that. But that is cause human interpretation of religions as to act evil!

I can't talk for all religions since I have only studied the Bible. And I haven't seen any part where it is mentioned to go and kill others!Many metaphors used for sure but in general it gives people a constant urge to act good and compassionate.

Atheists would just take some lines out of the Bible and say "hey see that! It says go and kill" without caring for the meaning that comes from all the rest that are written before and after this line.
But despite all these people STILL make chaos and take advantage of Christianity as to act evil and excuse it. Wanna say that religion is a bad moral system and that's what brings all the chaos? I hear that.
Is it the only one though that we still have as to convince people to act good? Yes it is. Unless you have something else in mind.

My wondering is what is the alternative?? What could replace that and in what way we could convince people to act good then? And I don't even say that I m right on that! Just my personal thoughts on that issue which bothers me. I was really careful with the wording of my questions.

So my next move if you still don't see my point?
Well I drop the mic! That's it.

Oh no no, my apologies then that I didn't get the deep meaning of your "wtf" argument! Now I do, and seems perfectly appropriate to use it now in what are you saying. You give me 2 choices for an issue that I don't doubt! — dimosthenis9

Thank you for humoring me and my quirks. :up:

I explain AGAIN that for me God and religions offer people a moral base as to act "good".Is it the best moral base? For sure no!
Of course throughout history mass murders happened in the name of God. I don't question that. But that is cause human interpretation of religions as to act evil! — dimosthenis9

This is all very convenient. The good you attribute to God, the evil to humans. You forget that humans are supposed to have done what God commanded be done - the genocide the Bible speaks of was God's will.

My wondering is what is the alternative?? What could replace that and in what way we could convince people to act good then? And I don't even say that I m right on that! Just my personal thoughts on that issue which bothers me. I was really careful with the wording of my questions. — dimosthenis9

That I have no alternative but to kill you in cold blood doesn't make it right to do so.

Miracles are only ever relative, and have been far overblown: the recent apologetists have misled the public on this point among others. — Fine Doubter

If Jesus rising from the dead was actually him getting up from a dreamless sleep, Christianity is in trouble, big trouble.

The fact that this has been presented thus by apologetists hasn't helped anyone's morals. The bad effects of ambition to apologetism strengthen my argument that Dimosthenes9 should go the logic route.
Didn't you see my responses and what did you think of them? I tried to cover the original ground.

Long answer: There's a dilemma for Christians which is that either the Bible is a metaphor or it's literal. If it's a metaphor, miracles are impotent. If it's literal, explain how genocide is good. — TheMadFool

Why do miracles become impotent if they're metaphorical? They just become not literal.

All of these anti-God threads degenerate into beefs people have against one form of organized religion or another.

Indeed, the apologetists haven't shown you whether the resurrection is relevant. I include it in my range of "relative". But what would you base morals on - would you base them on logic?