lobawad wrote:

Mick wrote: Craig says that our moral obligations are constituted by His commands, and that God is goodness itself. His commands are expressions of His nature, goodness itself. Thus, His commands are anchored in the very being of goodness, and they cannot be arbitrarily prescribed.

At the age of five or six, many children reckon that they can convince their mother that they have eaten their peas by scattering the peas about the plate.

Avoiding the dilemma by lumping the two horns together into one is the slickest approach, but a good hard look at the thing will reveal that this is an evasion. Why is God good?

To an attempt to continue evasion by responding with "God is Goodness itself", I will ask "Why is God Goodness itself?".

Thomists have an answer for this. I am unsure what Craig would say, as he is no Thomist. Craig reflects on the question here, by I would want more clarification. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument-for-god

Kraig doesn't reflect on the question, he empties his arse on the question, in the time-honoured fashion of fuckwit apologists.

hackenslash wrote:Kraig doesn't reflect on the question, he empties his arse on the question, in the time-honoured fashion of fuckwit apologists.

And yet another great contribution from Hacknslash. Thanks, dude. What would we do without this substantial analysis?

Rumraket wrote:How do we determine that god is goodness itself? How do we know that god is good and the devil is bad and not the other way around?

The bible of course proclaims this, but how do human beings determine that the claim is true?

Mick, care to take a stab at this question?

Mick wrote:

lobawad wrote:

Mick wrote: Craig says that our moral obligations are constituted by His commands, and that God is goodness itself. His commands are expressions of His nature, goodness itself. Thus, His commands are anchored in the very being of goodness, and they cannot be arbitrarily prescribed.

At the age of five or six, many children reckon that they can convince their mother that they have eaten their peas by scattering the peas about the plate.

Avoiding the dilemma by lumping the two horns together into one is the slickest approach, but a good hard look at the thing will reveal that this is an evasion. Why is God good?

To an attempt to continue evasion by responding with "God is Goodness itself", I will ask "Why is God Goodness itself?".

Thomists have assert an answer for this. I am unsure what Craig would say, as he is no Thomist. Craig reflects on the question here, by I would want more clarification. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument-for-god

FIFY.

Mick wrote:And yet another great contribution from Hacknslash. Thanks, dude. What would we do without this substantial analysis?

The name, Mick. Don't fucking do that.

You want a more in-depth analysis? Kraig doesn't warrant it. He's a professional liar.

A question I'd ask with regards to God's Goodness, the problem of evil, the free will rebuttal etc. etc., would be: Why is committing bad/wrong/evil actions 'part & parcel' of mankind's nature as free agents, but not therefore also 'part & parcel' of God's nature as a free agent?

Meaning; I'm assuming that God is a free agent (although I should never assume anything when it comes to religious beliefs, I've learned before...) - the 'most free', being omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. If we go far enough back, mankind didn't exist, and only this God did. His very nature meant being incapable of doing wrong/bad/evil. He was(is) omnipotent. He decides to create other free agents. Why was this omnipotent, omniscient, free, Good Being incapable of creating free agents who would also lack the capacity of doing wrong/bad/evil like himself; that would have a nature of Goodness and still be free?


Oh - hi, first post in seven months.

Mick wrote:

lobawad wrote:

Mick wrote: Craig says that our moral obligations are constituted by His commands, and that God is goodness itself. His commands are expressions of His nature, goodness itself. Thus, His commands are anchored in the very being of goodness, and they cannot be arbitrarily prescribed.

At the age of five or six, many children reckon that they can convince their mother that they have eaten their peas by scattering the peas about the plate.

Avoiding the dilemma by lumping the two horns together into one is the slickest approach, but a good hard look at the thing will reveal that this is an evasion. Why is God good?

To an attempt to continue evasion by responding with "God is Goodness itself", I will ask "Why is God Goodness itself?".

Thomists have an answer for this. I am unsure what Craig would say, as he is no Thomist. Craig reflects on the question here, by I would want more clarification. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument-for-god

Craig's answer is an evasion of the question he was asked, and it is a non-answer to my question: why is God good? (or Goodness itself?).

I wonder whom he thinks he's fooling when he attempts to dismiss the first horn solution by writing it off as Platonism? Perhaps I'll get some time to address what Craig says in the link you gave.

I wasn't aware that Thomists have an answer to my question. Aquinas himself, to my knowledge, did not directly address the dilemma, and the interpretations I have read did not answer the question I pose. I have read a Thomist evasion or two, but that does not mean that Thomists do not have a solid answer. I'd love to hear it.

Wilhud's miracle post is worse then his usual standard have been, IMO. Whereas previously I could understand, if not agree, with the position he's playing Devil's Advocate for, the miracle argumentation left me completely unconvinced that there's anything rational in them at all.

When I saw 'quantum' I thought he'd phoned that one in, too.

Mick, do you have a link to where Craig explains the sort of constitution he has in mind and its workings when he says that God's commands constitute our moral duties or obligations? I thought I had read this and that it'd be easy to find, but I'm having some trouble here.

Spinozasgalt wrote:Mick, do you have a link to where Craig explains the sort of constitution he has in mind and its workings when he says that God's commands constitute our moral duties or obligations? I thought I had read this and that it'd be easy to find, but I'm having some trouble here.

He has a debate book entitled something like 'is Goodness without God enough?'. There he defends his moral argument against several prominent philosophers. Check there. If it is not there, search his website. That constitution is different from identity is easy enough to see, but it is not so easy to see when we are talking more abstract things.

I'll have to review his debate book for more info.

Byron's latest post is now up.

I dunno how Will interpreted miracles, but I would take issue to this:

"Miracles are ipso facto incompatible with an ordered universe, since they are, by definition, extra-ordinary events that break with universal norms and rewrite our observed framework of how reality functions. Claims for a rational Christianity yet again serve up a schizophrenic deity who loves order, and simultaneously, overturns it with miracles. God has his reasons and, naturally, they've beyond our understanding (or rather, beyond the explanatory ability of his self-appointed mouthpieces -- not through any lack of skill on their part, but through the inherent flaws of the case they're trying to argue). "

Skeptics should take note when Byron makes reference to universal norms. What norms? Laws of nature are not typically understood to be norms, but descriptive regularities. Secondly, what "norms" give characterize reality? Scientific "norms" characterize the natural world. When we start to speak about reality, we start employing a sort of naturalism. But naturalism cannot be presumed in order to assess the rationality of Christianity. That is flat out question begging.

Lastly, I am unsure how anything is "broken". Miracles can easily be seen as actions outside of the scope of those laws of nature. That is, if we depict laws of nature as exceptionless regularities regarding things of nature alone, then a divine hand in this or that matter would not constitute a break of a law of nature, since the divine is not part of that scope of reference.

Mick wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:Mick, do you have a link to where Craig explains the sort of constitution he has in mind and its workings when he says that God's commands constitute our moral duties or obligations? I thought I had read this and that it'd be easy to find, but I'm having some trouble here.

He has a debate book entitled something like 'is Goodness without God enough?'. There he defends his moral argument against several prominent philosophers. Check there. If it is not there, search his website. That constitution is different from identity is easy enough to see, but it is not so easy to see when we are talking more abstract things.

I'll have to review his debate book for more info.

I did a search on ReasonableFaith.org, but couldn't find Craig going into it beyond the basic view he's taken. I will take a look at that book though. There's a nice essay from Mark C. Murphy in there, so I'll pick it up anyway. I know there's been a bit of a backlash against what are known as constitution views of DCT lately, because it's alleged that they either collapse into the identity view or are in need of something extra that's very particular and elusive (possibly Robert M. Adams takes the identity view to avoid these worries). So I guess I'm just interested to see how Craig would shake off these sorts of thorns or if his view is suitably different so that it avoids getting tangled with them.

I don't think he would overlook this, but the odd thing is that I haven't seen any of his critics press him on it.

Why does Byron keep pointing to disagreement among Christians about matters of theology and whatnot? What does it matter if we disagree on the exact conception of miracles? If that is evidence that Christianity is irrational, then we can say similiar things for conceptual disagreements amongst the adherents of liberalism, conservativism, socialism, Buddhists, humanists, etc.. What matters here is that we have a few foundational beliefs that make Christianity what is--a mere Christianity.

Mick wrote:Why does Byron keep pointing to disagreement among Christians about matters of theology and whatnot? What does it matter if we disagree on the exact conception of miracles?

Well, why don't you explain why you think it's rational of your church to encourage making telepathic entreaties to dead nuns when people are sick.

Then we might discover in what ways your explanation lends weight to Byron's side of the debate.

The next thrilling instalment awaits the indulgence of the membership...

willhud9 @ Formal Debate: Can Christianity Be Rationally Defended?

Will's erstwhile Protestantism is really shining through in his latest post. The sacramental theology of the Catholic Church (a communion numbering roughly a million souls) is called a "discrepancy," though even the Eastern Orthodox churches have a view closer to transubstantiation than the Protestant symbolic take. And Will seems to chuck "apostolic tradition" out the window:

The power hungry will say anything, and do anything to keep power. But Jesus said in Matthew that the church should beware of wolves dressed as sheep and that we would know a follower of Jesus by their fruit. Paul tells the church to test everything. A person making claims about miracles in order to retain a patriarchal church order, and to put women down needs to be tested on what merits his claims are true. Again a skepticism of those in power, applied to a logic of the consistency of the miracles of God, would show that such a notion is illogical and irrational.

Jesus would've needed to call down from heaven a printing press and a global literacy program, if he meant for workaday Christians to be conversant with the minutiae of scripture. On the other hand, he certainly had a close inner circle with whom he shared his theological mysteries, while those on the outside were only worthy of being spoken to in parables. And then he gave to the chief of these personal confidants "the keys to the kingdom" and the power from heaven to bind and loose on earth. If he wasn't trying to set up the structure of his Church in this manner, he could've made this clearer. Catholicism and Orthodoxy don't need to be true to make them no less rational than the Protestant system. Competing claims, both based solidly on scripture, are evidence of an ambiguous revelation—and an irrational religion that wastes everyone's time by having them try to score points against each other in endless internecine disputes. In taking the sectarian view (and, to be fair, he didn't have a much of a choice) Will unfortunately hasn't helped himself much at all; Byron's point seems more illustrated than refuted.

And then this:

Then again just because the people of the religion tend to be irrational does not mean that the faith itself is irrational. This is evidence by their being plenty of rational Christians to counterbalance the amount of irrationality.

I'm sorry, Will, but that's funny!

Byron's latest is now available.