How To Talk With Your Pre-teens About LGBT Issues

This advice is all well and good, but it sounds really defensive. How about telling kids something positive they can do? They can set an example of Christian behavior at school.

I’m talking about not bullying, or just toning down the peer pressure. So you could talk to your kids like this: “You know some boys are really rough and athletic while other boys are quiet and studious, right? Well, both are OK! Kids can do different things – whatever they’re comfortable with – and it’s alright. You shouldn’t pressure other people to be cool or to do what everybody else is doing.”

Similar advice for girls, of course. Some girls are pretty – or they try to be pretty – while others don’t seem to care about such things. Both are OK! You should try to be friends with all different types of kids. Don’t snub people just because they’re a little odd.

“1. The same thing common human experience has said for virtually all of history: marriage is the union of man and woman for the purpose of raising up the next generation.”

That’s not a tenable position. You can’t possibly know that much history, and I’d merely have to point out major exceptions to prove this statement wrong. The grain of truth that is in here is that marriage was not only about raising heirs but also about ownership of women as property. If we can compromise on this, then I think we can move forward. The purpose of women in a relationship tends more towards property the farther back one goes… That being said, if what you are saying is true and what I am saying is not true, then yours is still a self refuting argument to the extent that more fit males have a dominant strategy of sharing their genes with as many females as possible which certain doesn’t rule out polygamy, but rather endorses it. This is precisely why we see in ancient civilization that dominant males have multiple wives.

“2. The man and the woman have equal worth and importance, though not the same roles (1 Corinthians 7, Eph. 5:21-33Open in Logos Bible Software (if available), esp. Eph 5:25Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)).”

Yes, that is the modern interpretation of these NT verses, but if you look at the history of christian attitudes towards women you will see that is simply not the case. In our own country which you would assert is a majority christian nation, women were denied the right to vote and just recently attained that right. Now is this equality before the law or is this just different role in society? It is nearly insane to assert that men are best able to advocate for the rights of women and that women’s role is not to express their own needs. Please don’t do it. However, time and time again we see in christian societies that the rights of women have be subordinated to those of men for centuries… by contrast this is an improvement on OT property rights over women, but it certainly is not founded by christianity. How could this be true? The mere suggestion that women be submit to their husband’s will rules out all opportunity for true equality.

“3. Marriage is for the purpose of enjoying unity and intimacy, for both partners. (See esp. the first chapters of Genesis and the entire Song of Solomon).”

Marriage and sex are not the same thing, but since we are on the topic if we just look at your example in Genesis we quickly find that God is AOK with sex between brother and sister. I don’t know of a more vile sexual act, but god seems to forget that if Adam and Eve are the only created folks then the only way they can proliferate is between siblings. That taken in context of lot’s kids trying to have sex with their dad should tell you something. The people who wrote the bible looked at incest differently than we do today? You might say, but why do you object because you assert that there is no objective morality. I would say that the children born of such a relationship are unnecessarily exposed to genetic defects, but on the whole I don’t know if I care if ADULT siblings do weird things.

“4. Marriage is intended to be for keeps and for faithfulness (Ex. 20:14Open in Logos Bible Software (if available), Matthew 19:1-9Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)).
5. Marriage is a reflection of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people, the Church (Eph. 5:25-32Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)).”

Yes, I agree. I do agree that this is the scriptural interpretation, however, I would say that this changes from the OT to the NT. In the OT the responsiblity of faithfulness and appropriate relationship and purity was at the foot of the woman. It was her honor that was constantly questioned. The new testament shares this burden, but still makes the woman submissive to her husband. Consider the following: a woman who is raped by her husband or who endures cruelty from her husband is allowed to break the marriage, but Paul through christ still tells the woman to submit and perhaps bring her husband back to christ. I think this is pretty disgusting, but I would bet you think it’s noble–we disagree. Otherwise we largely agree about what the bible says, but the nuance of the OT must be included.

“The Levirate law about brothers marrying widows was for the sake of keeping widows from poverty, which would have happened otherwise in Ancient Near East culture. It was a good thing compared to other practices of the day.”

It is so confusing as to why someone with an objective all powerful god would settle for it being subjectively better. This again raises the teleological argument christians dare not touch with a ten foot pole. The morality of the god giving the commands changes with time just as we would expect it to…

“So one effect of this command was to alleviate the economic effect. There was a fine levied against the man, and he was never allowed to divorce the woman under any circumstances. This in itself would serve to deter rape, which is one thing we want with a rape law, isn’t it? That’s a second effect of this law”

I can’t believe I’m addressing the hole in your logic here. Ok, I rape a woman, I pay off her dad with 40 silver. I make her do 40 silver worth of work for me because I’m her master, maybe even 80 silver worth of work. Then I get her killed in an accident and I go rape another woman. The simple fact of the matter is that there are sooo many loopholes for men to abuse women with this “deterrent” that I don’t think you’ve thought about it at all.

Atheist find value in life by merely seeking after the things that give them pleasure. Feel free not to address, but it’s that simple.

When I say “one” I’m referring to christians in general. Christians would never have the conversation with their pre-teen in a way that says, “ok honey, now I want to show you what god said about if a man were to rape a woman in the OT. Now, let’s contrast that to the NT perspective one women. What do you think the teleological difference is? Is god being consistent? Do we have the right interpretation? What else does the OT say about women?” The unfortunate thing is that an honest conversation has all of the evidence and points of view on marriage if one is truly talking about a biblical perspective.

I listened to the interview and what did I find? Did I find nuance or acknowledgment of the OT differences? Nope. I certainly cannot understand the preoccupation christians have with what they consider one “sin”. It absolutely makes no difference to the gospel and it just smacks of people wanting to have a fight.

Lol, that was a long winded ad hominem attack. When one has nothing of substance to say, one must merely speak above the crowd and paint a beautifully falacious narrative of poppycock that does not attempt to justify or prove the assertions one makes. What is even more troubling is that the author in his attempt to paint a proper picture of human interaction he fails to condescend from the heights of his ivory tower to engage in conversation. He is as Paul would say a noisey gong. If the author would like to speak directly to me I would be glad to go through the arguments one by one, however, I can readily infer that he is not interested in speaking with such human “things” as myself. How do we atheists know the holy spirit does not exist? In many many many interactions just like this your holiest prove god does not change lives and only makes men worse for age.

I had no idea I was interfacing with children. I thought you and the owner of this page were adults. Thank you for correcting me. I’ll watch my methodology so I don’t confuse future children. By the way, your vocabulary is excellent for a child.

You must have failed to notice that I was asked to drop the questioning kid act. So I did. All of the questions I asked before this are questions preteens do ask. In fact, my own 6-year-old son supplied one of the questions. He wanted to know why some people say it is wrong for people (homosexuals) to love each other like our good friends do. He supplied his own answer too, he said that people are just different and it is OK to be different as long as they don’t hurt anyone. My son has always been a nuanced thinker, he takes after my dad. I on the other hand came to atheism after 15 years as a christian because I found that the Bible is very black and white on some issues and these create internal contradictions against your so called meta narrative. The fact that you don’t want to address those contradictions individually is most telling… Feel free prove me wrong.

Yes, yes, I know you keep making that assertion. We all heard it three times now. If you’d actually like to discuss the particular aspects of it, maybe we can come to an understanding.

“immutable nature of love’s irreducible reciprocity vis-à-vis the Imago Dei, which is itself but the shadow of the God Who is Himself love”

Word salad my friend, word salad. U may not have people call you on this but I will.

I will however attempt to answer your objection regardless of this nonsense you’re spewing. It seems as if you object to my objection because you interpret that God is merely failing to set out the good and rather just putting injunctions out there to constrain man’s deeds. This is not the case. There are many cases where God commands the Israelites to exercise his judgment on a particular act. Therefore one can infer that the act itself is wrong and understand gods thoughts in that context. A great example of this contradiction is incest.

J.,

That you seem to claim that Law/Moses can carry us either beyond the distance or else merely to the same distance (in all of our definitions) which Christ carries us to — and/or — which the Imago Dei carries us to, is again a demonstration of your chosen method of expunging a large swath of definitions. One — say — lies often, perhaps to oneself in some subtle way, or perhaps to others in even more subtle ways (or not subtle) — and yet one is found in Christ. Sin partially informs us of God’s Will. Law and Man’s inhumanity partially inform us of God’s Will. Yet the definitions which instantiate through Christ supersede both Law and Inhumanity.

Partial definitions just won’t do.

Not when far, far more is available.

Your continued methodology of appealing to someone else’s (the Christian’s, who you disagree with) story by appealing to Law and to Man’s inhumanity as “Meaning-Makers” while expunging the lens of the Imago Dei, while expunging the lens of Christ, is an unfortunate handling of someone else’s set of definitions.

Our very intuitive children watch adults interface with one another with such unfortunate handling of other people and their own personal definitions.

And our very intuitive children then model it themselves.

Eventually.

Moving on in the same theme:

If you question that the Christian God is Trinity, and if you question that within Trinity we find love’s timeless interfaces, and if you question that “God” is metaphysically irreducible, and if you question that that sort of God is (that the Christian God is) the “A” and the “Z” of the Imago Dei, then once again you demonstrate your chosen method of expunging large swaths of definitions from the singular metanarrative of God in Man, or of Man in God, or of both.

scbrownlhrm,

I’m obviously not smart enough to talk to you. I don’t wish to engage any further on this subject with you. Have a blessed day.

Jon

As to your assertion that sexuality isn’t a major theme in the Bible, please consider the following… https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/dictionary-of-bible-themes/6189-immorality-examples

Jonathon,

Just to address your belief that the Bible endorses incest through the Adam and Eve story and how it represents, as Tom describes, your inability to see the forest from the trees. In this case though the “trees” are right in the same book you referenced. In Genesis 4:14-16 it says:

14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.

Now, from this we learn that within the first generation of Adam and Eve’s offspring there are other people in the world who both Cain and God are familiar with and who are obviously not his siblings. Further, Cain goes the the land of Nod and there, 17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. If we’re following the story chronologically, then Cain’s wife or him having a wife isn’t mentioned until after he goes to Nod. This is another indication that there are people other than Adam and Eve’s offspring in the world with whom procreation is possible. All of this leads to the pretty reasonable conclusion that it wasn’t in God’s plan that “the only way they can proliferate is between siblings.

Now, you mentioned you were a Christian. Did you skip over reading Gen.4:14-16, did you never think about its obvious implications or are you getting your Biblical criticism from atheist websites. (I don’t mean to be too accusatory here but we get a lot of this kind poorly reasoned, Biblically inaccurate, quote mining (and this particular one isn’t new) and we’re pretty familiar with the “source” material from which it comes.)

Bill I’m so very glad you brought this up. I’m now left to wonder then if the children of this other race of people are under the same punishment of original sin as are the children of Adam and Eve? It would seem that original sin would only be specific to those who were tested? Then again you know my feelings on justice. So as a child of those other people, your God’s judgement doesn’t apply to me.

Test again

testing

And Jonathon, your repeated insistence that the Bible in general and Christianity in particular have been detrimental to women ignores one very obvious fact. The moral and ethical underpinnings of the entire human rights movement including civil rights and women’s rights are based in Christian teaching. They are found no where else in any other worldview. There are no other intellectual or philosophical viewpoints from which those movements could or did arise. They began in early Christian teachings and practice and have continued to proliferate for the last 2000 years. It may well be a work in progress but that’s a different question.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16592633

It took me literally 15 seconds to find this article… History has many examples of female dominated society. Happy googling.

Bill you should also consider that if we assume what you say is undeniable fact, then we also must explain why this message took 1900 years to take hold. On the other hand through science and objective inquiry gay rights took about 30 years… Gods message seems to be poorly understood and incapable of affecting lives when they most need it.

Well go on other Tom be specific or just dog pile, one or the other…

Actually this conversation has been making my point all along. The Bible is so full of contradictions, weird themes, meandering stories, divergent moral standards,… It is impossible to have a simple conversation with a preteen about what the Bible actually says about anything. The Bible rarely speaks with one voice on any subject. Having a discussion on one of these major themes is bound to bring questions, meandering nonsense, and contradictions. As I initially stated, there’s no way to have a coherent conversation about what the Bible says without lying and omitting information. Together we have proved that the subject is not capable of being discussed by a group of adults much less a preteen and their parent. The only outcomes one can expect are either brain washing “mind renewal” or rebellion. Good luck gents.

“Another non answer that attempts to change the subject. All you had to do was explain where moral and ethical underpinnings of the entire human rights movement including civil rights and women’s rights came from if not Christianity. Instead, a bunch of non-sequiturs.”

Lol, a task worthy of Sisyphus. I have to do that? You’re the one making assertions its up to you to prove, then I’ll negate. Have fun!

Tom, yes, that is the definition we all love and agree with, the definition Christians use is not that. It’s the cosmic ruler of Christ. You know it and I know it.

Tom you can’t prove what is correct, you can only fail to falsify. This is why the one making the assertion must go first, followed by an attempt to falsify. My attempts have all been to falisfy.

@Jonathan:

Tom you can’t prove what is correct, you can only fail to falsify. This is why the one making the assertion must go first, followed by an attempt to falsify. My attempts have all been to falisfy.

To falsify is to prove a proposition P is false. To prove P false is equivalent to prove not-P is true. So you refuted yourself. Either that or you are using falsification in a wholy novel and private sense. Besides there are countless examples of proofs, so I am left wondering what the heck are you talking about?

Neither is there any reason for “the one making the assertion” to go first. This is not a game in which you get to rig the rules in your favor. And if that was what it was, well you just made an assertion (“the one making the assertion must go first”), so by your *own* criteria you are bound to offer proof of it before we, or anyone else, accepts it. Oh wait, you said right at the start that “can’t prove what is correct”. Which by your *own* criteria can only mean that we are bound to not accept it.

(is this guy for real)?

Tom @73:

Don’t just look at the sayings. Look at the outcomes. Imagine you’re a woman. Would you rather live in one of the countries whose history has been dominated by Christianity or Islam?

The former obviously. But I’d follow with two more questions along the same line:
1. Imagine you are a woman in the year 800CE. Now, everything else being equal, would you rather live in the Christian Carolingian Empire or in the Muslim Abbasid Caliphate?
I’d choose the latter in a heartbeat.
2. Imagine you are a woman. Now, everything else being equal, would you prefer to have the legal status common in 17th century Europe or rather the one common in 20th century Europe?
If you’d choose the latter – do you think that the Christian establishment overall facilitated or rather impeded the changes wrt women’s rights that happened in that time?

@Tom Gilson:

No one is saying Christianity produced instant change. We’re saying its principles have led to sustained improvement over time.

I would put this by saying that the principles give the *rational* justification for implementing the changes and explain why the changes are not mere changes but changes *for the better*.

Tom @78

Irenicus @77, I’d be interested to see the source on that. Thanks.

Here you go:

https://books.google.de/books?id=MS_jrForJOoC&pg=PA118&dq=RAM+MOHAN+ROY+SATI+PRACTICE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EXvoUt2SN4mIrgeP_4HoAQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=RAM%20MOHAN%20ROY%20SATI%20PRACTICE&f=false

http://www.culturalindia.net/reformers/raja-ram-mohan-roy.html

But you’re comparing one Christian-influenced region with another.

And how do you know that those changes happened because of Christianity as opposed to the alternatives? The alternatives being a) that Christianity was only one factor among several, or b) negligible or even irrelevant to the change, or c) actually an impediment rather than a facilitating factor?
It seems to me that enlightenment ideas facilitated those changes, not Christianity.

Women’s suffrage was largely a Christian women’s initiative.

Again, how do you know that this was because of Christianity as opposed to any of the many alternative possibilities? (see above)
Why didn’t Christian women come up with those ideas and fought for them before the enlightenment?

As for #76, the difference over time is the difference that matters between Islam and Christianity: what is their influence over time?

I find it quite curious that significant positive changes wrt women’s rights followed very soon after the spread of Islam in the societies that adopted it, to the degree that the situation for women in Islamic societies during the Golden Age of Islam was actually significantly better than the situation of women in Christian Europe (after centuries of Christian influence…), while nowadays, the situation is reversed.

Tom,

The Bible seems to describe lots of actions-in-contexts, but is there a list somewhere in the Bible (or elsewhere) of the unchangeable moral principles that they are derived from? It would be pretty handy (to say the least) to have such a list.

It’s a shame that He didn’t do both: explain the underlying principles and use stories to show how they should be applied.

Without a clear exposition of the underlying principles, how can we be sure they exist and are truly objective and unchangeable?

Tom @87

(a) is true for reasons stated in the discussion above these most recent comments, and more besides.

Alright, then lets home in on a specific issue. The one you brought up (women’s suffrage) is a good one. How exactly does the rational Christian justifican for women’s suffrage look like?
And just out of curiosity:
Imagine a Christian who believes that men and women are equally valuable, but also interprets biblical teachings like Ephesians 5:22-24 and 1 Timothy 2: 11-15 to entail that civic engagement is one of the proper roles of men, not of women, who should rather focus on domestic tasks. Would you call that stance irrational? If so, on what grounds?

(b) is true in a broad sense. I’m sure there are exceptions. If you cite contemporary secularism as one of those exceptions, though, I’m ready for that with a strong rebuttal.

It is not true in a broad sense. I don’t even see it as true in a very limited sense. I also don’t have to point to secular humanism as a counterexample, I’d pick Islam to illustrate that even worldviews with a not exactly stellar record wrt women’s rights (at least when we look at the status quo today) could rationally ground this:
If we assume that the basic tenets of Islam are true, then we accept that Muhammad was the most perfect role model that ever lived. And since there are examples of Muhammad listening to women’s advice wrt political matters and appointing women to important political positions (e.g. Al-Shifa’ bint Abdullah who was regularly consulted by Muhammad for advice wrt to business matters and who was appointed to be bazaar-inspector in Medina), we’d have to conclude that civic engagement (like voting) should not be limited to men.
Sure, you can come up with a different argument that points to the exact opposite conclusion based on the assumption that Islam is true, but that does not mean that the argument I constructed here is irrational (and remember that you quite literally claimed that only Christianity could rationally ground this).

And (c) is based on long history.

And it is exactly that long history that roundly refutes the claim that we have Christianity to thank for women’s rights. If an effect trails an alleged cause for this effect by more than one and a half millenia, you need a damn good explanation why it took so long for the effect to materialize – and you don’t have a good explanation for that.

Irenicus,

So you want us to believe that you can construct an argument the Islam supports women’s rights based on your tortured personal interpretation of anecdotal stories of who Muhammad supposedly listened to and what that could possibly mean. Then you say:

Sure, you can come up with a different argument that points to the exact opposite conclusion based on the assumption that Islam is true, but that does not mean that the argument I constructed here is irrational

Well, in the light of Islam’s actual track on human rights in general and women’s rights in particular , yes, the argument you constructed here is irrational. Quite irrational. And that’s not to mention that if, as you say, Muhammad was the most perfect role model that ever lived then what does his personal ownership of slaves and multiple wives say, and say quite plainly, about his personal views on human and women’s rights.,

It’s especially irrational when you compare it to Christianity which holds within it’s basic tenets and the example of its prophet the radical equality of all people regardless of race, gender, class or any other demarcation.

BillT,

So you want us to believe that you can construct an argument the Islam supports women’s rights based on your tortured personal interpretation of anecdotal stories of who Muhammad supposedly listened to and what that could possibly mean.

Yup. Because if you start with Islam as a worldview, that is actually a perfectly rational thing to do.
Just like you tortured personal interpretations of Bible hearsay about what Jesus allegedly did and said are not completely useless as an argument if one grants for the sake of the argument that a Christian worldview is actually true.

Well, in the light of Islam’s actual track on human rights in general and women’s rights in particular , yes, the argument you constructed here is irrational. Quite irrational.

If we look at the first centuries after those religions became widespread, Islam’s track record was actually much better than that of Christianity. The track record of Christian Europe only started to significantly improve many centuries after Christianity became the dominant religion and only after the enlightenment – those recent developments are not Christianity’s track record, they are the track record of the enlightenment.

And that’s not to mention that if, as you say, Muhammad was the most perfect role model that ever lived then what does his personal ownership of slaves and multiple wives say, and say quite plainly, about his personal views on human and women’s rights.,

It says that polygamy and keeping slaves are, at least in some situations, perfectly acceptable – like “righteous” King David’s hundreds of wives and Paul’s command for slaves to “obey your earthly masters” and Yahweh’s precise instructions how slaves can be bought and abused. And spare me your rationalizations for that, they work exactly as well for the Quran.

It’s especially irrational when you compare it to Christianity which holds within it’s basic tenets and the example of its prophet the radical equality of all people regardless of race, gender, class or any other demarcation.

Yeah, yeah, not interested in your tortured subjective interpretation.

Irenicus,

Let’s dispense with all the speculations about what religion does or does not support women’s rights. No one nowadays really cares about religious viewpoints anyway. You certainly don’t. However, I think the relevant here issue is that the current worldview, the one you support, can’t support women’s rights. The current version of women’s rights is morally bankrupt. There is no good reason for women to have equal rights with men. Do you think I’m wrong? If so why don’t you explain to us just why it is that women should have equal rights. That shouldn’t be hard for someone like you that has such strong feelings on the subject, Surely, you must have thought long and hard about why this is true. So Irenicus, why should women have equal rights.

BillT,

I’d like to ask you a couple of questions in a similar vein. Do you support child marriage? If not, on what grounds do you not support it? Do you think that children aged 14 (say) should be allowed to vote? If not, why not?

Irenicus,

I grant everything you say in your #97 to be true. I don’t believe in equal rights for women and your post shows exactly why. And my position stands on firm Biblical ground.

Now, instead of avoiding my question to you perhaps you can tell us why you think women should have equal rights.

I’m not sure I understand what your question has to do with the subject we’re discussing. The ability of minor children to make life decisions or participate in the democratic process is of what relevance here?

I’m not so interested in the conclusions, but how you reach them, given that you draw your morality from the Bible. That is what I’m interested in. Can you explain your thinking process and the conclusions you reach?

Irenicus,

You’re a persuasive guy. You won. You’ve convinced me.

Now, will you stop avoiding my question to you and tell us why you think women should have equal rights.

Why do women have the same rights? Because Society recognized so. And this is what passes for an argument — must be all that “Enlightenment”.

@Jeanette:

G.Rodrigues, can you try to explain exactly why it falls short? I could just as easily make a snide retort about basing your worldview on a book that contains talking snakes and donkeys, but it doesn’t exactly move things in a productive direction.

I did. Irenicus did not offer an argument, but threw out a claim that somehow we are all expected to swallow. You do know what an argument is, don’t you?

He did not explain what “fully human” is. He did not explain how exactly the Enlightenment (that curious British gentleman wearing a powdered wig) discovered this “fact”, something that hitherto escaped unnoticed to the rest of mankind — at least if we are to believe Irenicus. Did it peer the entrails of chickens? Gazed the starry heavens? Received a revelation from God on high? He did not explain why being “fully human” entails being a bearer of rights. He did not explain why all “fully human” are the bearers of the *same* rights. He said Society “recognized so” — this suggests (although he will have to clarify) that there is are no such thing as “rights” beyond what Society “recognizes”. So if tomorrow Society “recognized” that women, while maybe “fully human” (whatever that means), did not have such “rights” it could very well revoke them. I could go on.

make a snide retort about basing your worldview on a book that contains talking snakes and donkeys

Yes you could, and then I would, in a snide retort, tell you that the Bible is not a book for silly children and that something besides a screaming vacuum inside the hard skull is mandated.

Forgive me, but G. Rodrigues reply to what appear to be insincere, “gotcha” questions by Jeanette are precisely the reason I am still an addicted lurker here at Thinking Christian. Even if English is not your first language, you express yourself very well G. Thanks for contributing.

Jeanette,

I’m still not sure where this fits in but to your question about minors being allowed to marry and vote, the reasoning goes something like this. We believe that we have free will to choose our own paths in life and make personal decisions. We believe it takes a certain minimum amount of emotional, intellectual and moral maturity to made life decisions that will have permanent affects, life marriage, or affect others, like voting. 14 year olds don’t have the requisite maturity to make either of these decisions.

Sorry, Bill, I must have written that last comment while you were already replying.

It seems from your reply that you aren’t really using the Bible to guide you towards your conclusion. At least you didn’t seem to mention it or quote anything from it. Is that fair?

G. Rodrigues,

Irenicus did not offer an argument…

Indeed. I just explained why this change happened, and I also explained why I’m not going to provide an argument for why this change was a good thing (#103).

…but threw out a claim that somehow we are all expected to swallow.

Wrong. I actually appreciate you not “swallowing” it – because this kind of extremism is the best way to marginalize the Bible. Also, everyone who’s opinion matters has already accepted that this change was a change for the better.

Yes you could, and then I would, in a snide retort, tell you that the Bible is not a book for silly children and that something besides a screaming vacuum inside the hard skull is mandated.

I’d agree, not a book for silly children – if anything, a book written by them. Only an exceptionally silly man-child could write stuff like:
“No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins.”
or:
“A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. ‘ On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.”

@BillT

When I read between the lines, what I read is that your personal morality is subjective – you and Tom have come to different conclusions, on the topic of women’s rights, based on different interpretations of the same source material.

Free will is just as questionable with God. If God is omniscient we can’t do anything that would surprise Him. He knew exactly what was going to occur when He created the world. Our lives are unfolding in exactly the way He foresaw. The free will we like to believe we have is nothing of the sort in a Godful universe. Our actions have been mapped out and we can’t change them. We can’t take a turn that God didn’t know we would take. God can’t choose what He knows. He has to know everything or He’s not omniscient, by definition.

Regarding, child marriage, the Bible does not seem to say that it is sinful, evil or even bad. In fact, God appears to condone it by choosing a young bride to give birth to His son. Does that mean you also agree with pedophilia? If not, why not, when God Himself does not seem to find it a problem?

Jeanette @ #118,

Free will is just as questionable with God. If God is omniscient we can’t do anything that would surprise Him. He knew exactly what was going to occur when He created the world. Our lives are unfolding in exactly the way He foresaw. The free will we like to believe we have is nothing of the sort in a Godful universe. Our actions have been mapped out and we can’t change them. We can’t take a turn that God didn’t know we would take. God can’t choose what He knows. He has to know everything or He’s not omniscient, by definition.

Several years ago I would go to a local restaurant once or twice before work to have breakfast. I ordered the same thing every time—scrambled eggs, sausage links and a biscuit with honey. After a while the waitress who normally served me would put in my order the moment she saw me walk through the door. She wasn’t omniscient but she did foreknow my breakfast preference. Did I still have free will even though she foreknew what I would order? Could I still change my mind if I so chose? IOW is free will categorically the same thing as foreknowledge?

@JAD

The difference is your waitress didn’t know for certain what you were going to order.

@Jeanette:

Free will is just as questionable with God. If God is omniscient we can’t do anything that would surprise Him. He knew exactly what was going to occur when He created the world. Our lives are unfolding in exactly the way He foresaw. The free will we like to believe we have is nothing of the sort in a Godful universe. Our actions have been mapped out and we can’t change them. We can’t take a turn that God didn’t know we would take. God can’t choose what He knows. He has to know everything or He’s not omniscient, by definition.

I do not want to sound condescending, but it would be helpful if you at least had a modest acquaintance with what Christian theologians have written — I am thinking of St. Augustine and Boethius. If you google them up, you will see that this is *old* stuff.

First, let me say that JAD’s answer does not work if meant as a complete response to your challenge (although it is not a useless answer). Second, your characterization of God’s knowledge is incorrect. You are thinking of God’s knowledge as knowledge just like ours; He foreknows as in He knows ahead of time, what we will do. But this is incorrect, because God is not in time, God is not a temporal creature — God is not even *a* *creature*. God knows what I will do tomorrow, but this knowledge is not “obtained” as if by peering into the future the way a witch would peer into a crystal ball, much less is obtained *before* I do what I will do. There is no temporal relation between me doing X tomorrow and God knowing that tomorrow I will do X. Since there is no temporal relation, neither there is the modal relation you attribute to God’s knowledge, that of necessitating my doing X tomorrow. In short, the argument you sketch fails.

@Irenicus:

I’m not really surprised that you resort to the trusty old “I know what you are but what am I?!” defense

What defense? I am simply stating what is painfully obvious. Someone that characterizes the Bible as silly on grounds of, to give but one example, a prophetic passage couched in allegorical language is a moron that should not be trusted with any books, let alone the Bible, the most important book for the western culture — whether we believe it is God’s word or not (There would be no Shakespeare or Dante or Cervantes or their few peers, and they invented us all).

given that you seem to think that Bible verses that can be fairly summarized as “girls are icky and have cooties!”, like this one:

A summary that you pulled out of your arse, because there is absolutely no comment of mine in this thread of how I think the Bible should be interpreted on the issue of women and their rights.

If on the other hand you think, not only that the Bible is a supremely silly book, and therefore by implication Christianity is supremely silly and by exemplification all us Christians here silly people, but you think that it ought to be marginalized, and therefore by implication Christianity ought to be marginalized and by exemplification we Christians ought to be marginalized, then why exactly are you here wasting your time on us, Christian bible readers? You are certainly not arguing; you obviously have reading comprehension difficulties and you have not given any arguments. You think you do not even have to waste your time laying out arguments, after all it is all so obvious and everyone whose opinions you deem worthy already agrees with you. Congratulations, but maybe your time would be better spent marginalizing us in whatever forums are more appropriate?

@G. Rodrigues

God knows what I will do tomorrow, but this knowledge is not “obtained” as if by peering into the future the way a witch would peer into a crystal ball, much less is obtained *before* I do what I will do. There is no temporal relation between me doing X tomorrow and God knowing that tomorrow I will do X.

If God is able to observe our lives as they unfold then it doesn’t matter whether God is inside or outside of time. We have time and that all that is relevant in relation to free will.

The question is whether God knows what will happen in our timeline. If He has this knowledge with respect to our time, with certainty, then my argument holds.

If at the genesis of the universe He knew for certain how our lives would unfurl in our timeline, then it means we cannot choose a different path that contradicts this knowledge. In other words, if He is omniscient, free will is an illusion. He created us knowing full well how our lives would go. We are just playing out His script.

@Jeanette:

If God is able to observe our lives as they unfold then it doesn’t matter whether God is inside or outside of time. We have time and that all that is relevant in relation to free will.

Your statement is absurd. Of course it matters, because the argument you sketched does not hang independently of our conceptions of Free Will, and because its *structure* logically requires the existence of certain temporal relations. Specifically, the argument as you sketch needs two things: (1) there exists a temporal relation between God’s knowledge and my doing X tomorrow and (2) this entails a relation of necessity, to wit: God’s knowledge is infallible, therefore if God knows that I will do X tomorrow, necessarily I will do X tomorrow. (2) is alright, and you will not hear me quibbling about it, but (1) is wrong, dead wrong. And you need (1) to derive the necessity, for from (2) alone it does *not* follow that necessarily, tomorrow I will do X.

And thus, it does *not* follow that we have no alternative possible course of actions (this is the most common, libertarian conception of Free Will; while I do not think it is quite right, it is good enough for the purposes of this discussion). In possible worlds lingo (which I do not like very much, for reasons that I will not go over) where tomorrow I do X_1, God infallibly knows that tomorrow I do X_1, in some *other* possible word where tomorrow I do X_2, God infallibly knows that I do X_2. In the actual world, tomorrow I will do X, and God infallibly knows that tomorrow I will do X, but quite obviously from what I said before, it does not follow that necessarily I will do X, which is what your argument logically requires. In logical terms, you are illegitimately shifting the modal operators.

Neither does God “observe our lives as they unfold” as some sort of external spectator, because not one thing would exist even for a nanosecond were it not for the sustaining power of God conserving it in being, so that God’s knowing that tomorrow I will do X and God’s conservation in being of all beings so that tomorrow I will do X are one single, undivided act.

If at the genesis of the universe He knew for certain how our lives would unfurl in our timeline, then it means we cannot choose a different path that contradicts this knowledge.

And the same mistake again of attributing a temporal relation to God’s knowledge. God does not know that I will do X tomorrow “*at* the genesis of the universe” (emphasis mine; “at” attributes a temporal location to God’s knowledge) nor yesterday nor tomorrow nor at any point in the timeline of the universe, because God’s knowledge is atemporal. And thus it does *not* follow, that at the genesis of the universe it was already in the stars so to speak, that tomorrow I will do X.

If on the other hand, you are aiming at an argument for modal collapse (which, I repeat, would be a different argument from the one you sketched, and thus requires a different response), it too will fail because the only thing you can prove is that on the supposition that God wills X, then necessarily X, which is unobjectionable.

@Jeanette:

Why did He rest on the seventh day? How do you interpret Genesis with such a view?

The Bible also says that God will enfold His servants in his wings; as far as I know, no Christian has read this as the Bible saying that God is a giant chicken clucking across the sky.

Jesus clearly had a temporal relationship with the world. Are you saying that Jesus had no power to predict the future? But he predicted his death and resurrection? How did he do that?

Yes Jesus clearly had a temporal relation with the world, since quite trivially, in his human nature he was a human being and thus in the world. And?

The Bible makes prophecies and fulfils prophecies. If God has no predictive capability, how could these prophecies occur?

Where did I say that “God has no predictive capability”?

Look, you have the wrong interlocutor here. You probably should be talking with someone else, some die-hard fundamentalist literal-Bible reading Christian, someone for whom your questions, and the assumptions they carry, make a lick of sense.

How shallow, ignorant and vulgar most of modern atheism is. It is essentially the same fundamentalist mindset they excoriate, except in a different clothing. But I suppose we Christians deserve this state of affairs. Dr. Johnson railed against Hume, that “brilliant sophist”; we have the obsteperous and obnoxious Dawkins (*). Oh well.

(*) to be fair, there is also Mackie and Sobel and a few others.

Benfica has just won the national football league for the third consecutive year (I believe Americans call football “soccer”, an ugly word if there ever was one). God is good, all is well with the world, I am happy, and you atheists can all go collectively suck a cow.

Foreknowledge:

True, it is impossible for us to make any volitional choices other than the volitional choices which we volitionally choose to make.

*If* we would have chosen differently (we can/could) *then* God would have known differently.

Cart. Horse.

Horse. Cart.

Therein volition stands untouched, fully intact, wholly irreducible to some non-volitional part, content, or element. Sort of like “being” stands wholly irreducible to some “non-being” or some non-existent part, content, or element. Aquinas (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/first-without-second.html) talks of proportionate causality, which has overlap in the context of the created essence of the Decreed, the Willed, and thus unavoidable, Imago Dei.

J.,

It’s not complex at all:

It is impossible for us to make any (truly volitional) choices other than the (truly volitional) choices which we (truly volitionally) choose to make.

Why? Because if I freely choose (truly volitional) between A and B, and therein choose B, then I’ve chosen B, so it is impossible for me to have chosen A.

Simple.

J.,

To clarify the moment of distinction:

There was this: “If I freely choose (truly volitional) between A and B, and therein choose B, then I’ve chosen B, so it is impossible for me to have chosen A.”

It may help if we add the phrase “now that I’ve chosen B”, so that it reads:

If I freely choose (truly volitional) between A and B, and therein choose B, then I’ve chosen B, so it is, now that I’ve chosen B, impossible for me to have chosen A.

Of course, prior to me having freely chosen between A and B, I was free (truly volitional) to choose either A or B.

@scbrownlhrm

No offense, but I’m talking to G. Rodrigues and BillT.

@G. Rodrigues, @BillT

Here’s a summary of my logic about free will, in brief:

The Bible makes and fulfils God’s prophecies. God is infallible, so these prophecies are not simply best guesses. In other words, God knows our future for certain and has communicated it to us. (It is therefore irrelevant what form God takes and whether He is inside or outside of time because he has demonstrated his ability to tell us about events that will happen in our timelines before they have happened. Or do you deny that?)

Therefore, we can’t do anything God doesn’t expect. As he created us, we are effectively playing out a script that he wrote. Free will is an illusion. Our lives are already plotted and fully known by God.

To be clear: if we could, at any time, even in theory, have taken an action that God did not expect (e.g. an experimental accident that wipes out humanity), then his prophecies would be guesses and not immutable truths. In other words, God would be fallible and not omniscient.

@scbrownlhrm
You fail to properly distinguish between per se and per accidens volitional causal chains, and hence temporalize essentially atemporal arguments. Design is a concept in the mind of the designer or is instantiated in a real being or both. You are explicitly buying in to the univocity of being error. God does not “make” anything… otherwise, He would be reduced to something akin to Plato’s Demiurge artificer. As Actus Purus He creates, which is an atemporal divine act that brings into existence from non-existence.

Irenicus,

Unclean periods in the woman is radically bizarre?

It’s nice of you to agree with the Christian!

It’s nice that you agree (with the Christian) that the ceremonial law was radically strange in its affairs of not mixing blood and not eating blood relative to the Sacrificial System given that it all had nothing to do with Scripture’s definitions of Mankind’s irreducible value/worth and given that (per Scripture’s definitions) the means of Moral Excellence could never be instantiated in or through any of it. The ceremonial law there in the foreshadowing of another category of Eternal Sacrifice is, while mundane, of interest of course only in the context of the proverbial schoolmaster with respect to what lay up ahead in Christ.

But simply agreeing with us isn’t enough.

It’s also nice to see that you agree (with the Christian) that God intends, say, “L” for Mankind at large (the Imago Dei) yet God commands (commanded), say, “I” for those within Israel in the Law/Moses, that God hates X while leaving X unchecked in Law/Moses, that Law/Moses actually maneuvers around the hardness of hearts leaving things unchecked, actually maneuvers within the mindsets of those it interfaces with (in Case Law) and that the Ceremonial Law is myopic on what was up ahead in Christ with respect to God’s own self-giving love. While all of that is obvious given the definitions of Scripture’s metanarrative and given the facts and given the lens of Christ – even the lens of the Imago Dei forces the same semantics – you’ll still have to do better than merely agree with the Christian if you mean to gain any traction *against* the Christian’s definitions.

Simply agreeing with the Christian isn’t the same as showing us your own moral ontology by which you can rationally define those very same things as [The Good] or as [The Good minus something].

Merely agreeing with Christianity’s metaphysical lines within such matters and merely agreeing with Christianity’s ethic of love’s egalitarian self-giving isn’t something you’ve justified as rational on your own terms. You’ll need to use your own moral ontology (love’s ontology) to justify why in your own metaphysic (as in the Christian’s) it is the case that “The Good” and “The Good minus something” are even rational to believe in.

“The-Good” (God, Imago Dei) remains fixed, unchanging, while, per the definitions of Scripture’s metanarrative, “The Good minus something” defines our painful, mutable, and fluid reality.

BTW: You’ll also need to use your own moral ontology (your own ontology of love given that love is the highest ethic) to justify why in your own metaphysics (as in the Christian’s) it is the case that the diseased, and those with dementia, and the biologically unfit, and women, and men, and children, and the insane, and the criminal, and the slave, and the rejects of the world all house within themselves irreducible worth and irreducible value which we are (all of us) to treat as sacred, as Christ, as brother, enemy and all, and how it is that such (factually) transcends all that body and environment can hurl at them, at us, which (factually) transcends the physics behind neuronal sodium pumps, and which shows us an explanatory trail which (factually) terminates in love’s egalitarian self-giving, which shows us a metaphysic of love’s self-outpouring (as is found in the immutable nature of *God*, in the processions within *Trinity*).

Until then, your agreement with the definitions of Scripture’s metanarrative amounts to nothing more than borrowing on your part which you’ve yet to remit the proper funds for. Not everything is for free you know.

Sorry about that. By the way, G. Rodrigues, I appreciate your intellect, your patience with me and the clarity of your writing. It is especially impressive, if, as Chapman55 intimated, English isn’t your mother tongue.

From: https://newtheist.org/

Imagine you are at a stop light and you are going to turn right. You look to your left and you see no cars [100% certainty implied]. At this moment you know with 100% certainty, “If I pull out into the street, I will *not* be struck by a car.” Did your knowing you would not be struck by a car cause the street to be empty? No, the street could have still had cars on it independent of what you know to be true. If there had been cars coming, however, then you would have instead known, “If I pull into the street then I *will* be struck by a car.” In the same way, God knows what we will do but his knowledge doesn’t cause our actions. If we were to [volitionally] choose differently, then he would have known differently. (by MattB)

Alternatively, Jesus did not know for certain, but was simply making an educated-guess based on his reading of people and the situation. He could have be wrong.

J.,

Now you are equating Prophecy with Causation.

The fact that prophecy is merely the content of foreknowledge, which is not causative, falsifies your premise/conclusion.

If God tells us that in AD 70 Rome will destroy the temple, that is information based entirely on God knowing the results of Man’s irrecusably volitional choices — hence causation is — again — cut off.

You’ll have to show us *HOW* God telling us about Rome in AD 70 causes the irreducibly volitional to just evaporate.

Does God go inside the soul of the Man and remove the man’s nature, the man’s irreducible volition (irreducible in the same sense in which his being/existence is irreducible….non-being into being via creating etc.) ??

Please explain.

@scbrownlhrm

If God told you today you were going to die tomorrow in a plane crash in the middle of the Pacific, would you get on a plane? Of course not! Not if you had any free will, you wouldn’t anyway.

It is fine for God to know your fate, as long as He keeps it to himself. If He lets slip to you, then we enter a paradox. Either He controls your actions or the situation to ensure you get on the plane, or He is wrong about the future.

Jeanette, I’d be interested to know what conclusion you would draw if we were unable to provide you a completely satisfying answer to your question.

We do not seem to have free will under the God hypothesis.

Jeanette,

Actually, you should probably be more skeptical if we did provide you a completely satisfying answer to your question.

After all, we are taking about things that are at the farthest reaches of our understanding and involve a God who we know to be beyond our ken. There is some mystery to our faith. There is no completely satisfying answer to the question of free will in a universe with a sovereign God. That’s how it should be. If someone were to tell you differently than that, that’s something of which you surely should be skeptical .

So, if you are going to set the bar at “completely satisfying answer” then you should probably stop “wasting” your time here and get on with the rest of your life. Just remember that in the rest of your (secular) life there are just as many questions that you accept that far short of a “completely satisfying answer”. No worldview has all the answers. Christianity answers some and not others, just like every other worldview.

@scbrownlhrm

You seem to be saying that the Pharisees and Pilot heard Christ speak of
his death, or heard about Christ speaking of his death, and that “new
information” removed, once they heard it, their irreducible volition, their
nature, such that they were forced to kill Christ.

No, this is not what I’m saying at all. I don’t know how to explain it more clearly. I’ll try one more time, but after that you’ll have to expunge your irreducible volition in some other direction than me.

What I’m saying is that after Christ told his disciples… If his disciples had free will, they could have taken actions that might have changed the course of history. For example, rather than allowing Christ to suffer an excruciating death by crucifixion, the disciples could have helped Christ die slightly less painfully, say, by drowning him.

Obviously in reality they didn’t do that. The question though is could they in theory have taken such an action? Did they have their full free will at their disposal or were they curtailed?

@scbrownlhrm

Can you point to a place where God tells us we are going to die in a plane crash?

Can you point to a place in Scripture where Martin Luther King Jr. is mentioned? If you can’t understand what I’m asking or can’t answer my questions that is fine, but there is no need to be silly about it.

J.,

Yes, they could have tried to stop the crucifixion.

You’re still equating new information (foreknowledge) as causative.

Had they chosen to try, they would have failed, and that is simply given that had they chosen A or B or C or D or E, of which God knows all possible outcomes regardless of what free choice they make, God knows the path/outcome.

And in fact God knows that they will freely choose D and not A.

Hence any prophecy about “X will happen” *includes* all such information.

Your view of God is very small. He has far more Gigs for such information (Worlds) than you seem to think possible.

In fact, your *god* cannot even be the Christian God.

This *is* a Christian blog you know.

BTW: You still have not answered the question about Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.

Your plane crash fails because it’s not scriptural.

Your plane crash is of some small god set up or context.

That case, the MLK case, the case of Pilot, and your case with the disciples all involve a wide array of possible free choices and an even wider array of outcomes each free choice can yield. God’s foreknowing all of it just fails to cause any of it.

What, God only has so many Gigs in which to store new / possible information?

Since we are dealing with Christianity, and not your *god*, there is this:

Please show us in Scripture the prophecy which forces us to do X tomorrow or next year, or next decade.

Then:

Please show us *HOW* reading those few verses (which you won’t find) expunges our volition.

J.,

You asked if the disciples could have kidnapped Jesus (or whatever).

Of course they could have freely chosen to do so.

So what?

What, God can’t freely choose too? Remember the chains on Peter/Paul (was it them?) breaking?

Who did that?

Which free Agent did that? God sent an Angel. God can do it Himself too. Do you really think free will in man can thwart God’s free will?

That’s choice A for the disciples: Kidnap Jesus and use chains and…. and… and…

They have about 100 other choices they could freely make.

So what?

God is a free agent too.

Just like Man.

Because, well, Imago Dei and all that.

Tom,

I don’t agree with your characterization of the material view of reality in the way it pertains to free will, but that’s a new can of worms that I don’t really want to open up.

As I said in #113, I am not claiming that I have a better or more consistent worldview. I got sidetracked into that discussion on free will because of something BillT said that irked me way back in #115.

I notice, I still have an unanswered question from #113 that relates more towards the topic of the original post:

If the principles of morality are objective, as claimed, why is that Tom appears to believe that women should have equal rights, while BillT does not?

I’m glad I don’t have to argue to make my point. The incessant disagreement among christians does it for me every time. The false dichotomy between objective and subjective morals is so weak, WLC and christians have managed to convince themselves and atheist that this is so. Here’s the argument against: Objective morals exist and are contingent upon the agreement that subjectively human well being is important. People who do not agree that human well being matters kill themselves and take themselves out of the argument. Therefore, everyone who is alive admits wellbeing is important and simultaneously affirms objective morals. Done. For folks like myself who say objective morals don’t exist, I just mean that in the way christians mean it… those kinds of morals don’t exist because there isn’t a god. Good luck with that one.

@Jeanette:

Jesus accurately prophesied the timing and manner of his own death.

How could he know for certain what his future captors would do, if they truly had free will?

First, it is *particular* human beings that have Free Will — you, me, Tom Gilson, etc. And let us stipulate for the purposes of this discussion that Free Will consists in having alternative possibilities (once again, I do not think this is *quite* right, but we can lay aside such worries for now). So it means that you, me, Tom, etc. have at each time different possible courses of action that we could take. This is another important detail: Free Will is a power whose proper object are *actions*.

With this background, here is the kind of “accurate” prediction that would pose a potential problem needing a more detailed solution: soldier X_1 (a *particular* soldier) will travel to wherever Jesus is (a *particular* action) at time t_1 (a *particular* time) and arrest him (another particular action). Did Jesus made any such kind of predictions? No. There are no such kind of predictions in the Bible. And one of the obvious reasons there are none is precisely because it would jeopardize Free Will which is what God will not do.

Now let us turn to the case of Jesus. Jesus prophesied his own death. He also responded to Pontius Pilate that his authority, Pontius that is, was actually not his but from God above. If necessary, Jesus could call a couple of legions of angels to burn the whole place down and set him free. From this it follows that Jesus prophecy is simply the prophecy that he would freely submit to the Free Will of his captors — which is not a prophecy strictly speaking. Nothing paradoxical or inconsistent here.

Another possible objection would be the following: Jesus death was prophesied. So it follows that at least *some* possible courses of action were impossible. For example, since Jesus was prophesied to die Peter could not have whisked away Jesus from the cross or some such. But is not that a curtailing of Peter’s Free Will? No. That would make of Free Will a *boundless*, *unlimited* potentiality which is not Free Will but a contradiction in terms and not a concept of Free Will I am interested in defending, that is, couldn’t care less if this sort of “Free Will” is violated (which as I said is not Free Will but a contradiction in terms, although I am not going to justify this here).

And I repeat, in the cases where a reasonable doubt could or does arise, they must be answered on a case by case basis and always bearing in mind that we, meaning human beings, are not God, and there are things, lots of things, beyond our ken, at least in this life. If we do not know them, God did not see fit to inform us, and if He did not informed us, it is because it is not necessary for our salvation.

It is admirable your tenacity in firing gotcha questions on the Bible at us. Just remember that we have 2000 years of thinking in advance of you, and thinking by some of the most brilliant minds humanity ever had. You will loose.

@BillT:

Neither of these answer the question satisfactorily but he did try.

Quite emphatically, he did not even try.

Jeanette,

First, my apologies. My position wasn’t meant to deceive but to be a thought experiment. Taking a contrary position to challenge the position of someone is something that most everyone here has done. I’ve asked people repeatedly why, if morality is subjective, it’s not ok for me to torture children for my personal pleasure. I doubt many believed I really wanted to do that. I get this was a bit less obvious, so again my apologies.

I can see your point but I also think you are confusing the meaning of objective morality. Objective morality means that it’s principals are grounded in an objective law giver not that their being objective makes them easy to understand or that everyone would agree with each other. The world is a complicated place.

My example above is case in point. If there is no objective law giver and basic principals grounded in that objectivity what is the answer to my question regarding those children. On what basis can you tell me that I shouldn’t harm them. The question isn’t just whether you should or shouldn’t do this or that but why you should you should or shouldn’t do this or that. Dostoevsky famously put it like this: “If God does not exist, everything is permissible” What do you think?

BillT @175,
What will be the likely consequences if you torture children? Will you feel good about yourself? Will you feel like you’re contributing to society? Will others respect you? What will be the likely consequences of that? Overall, will it be a positive thing in your life?

BillT @175,

“If God does not exist, everything is permissible”

There’s nothing that physically stops us from torturing children. However, we do have the ability to restrain our impulses. Why might we want to do that in this case?

Firstly, there are strong evolutionary reasons to cooperate and to look after each other. A human baby cannot survive without others’ care. Even once we’re grown up we’re generally safer and more likely to survive in a group than on our own. If you become ill or injured people can look after you until you recover.

Secondly, we can use our brains to think through the consequences of our actions. Not just the immediate consequences, but the longer term consequences.

Thirdly, we can communicate our thoughts not only by speaking but in more persistent forms too. In that way, we can agree and create laws with the aim of improving everyones lives and protecting all of us from negative consequences.

By the way, none of these requires reading the Bible.

I find it sad that you have this view of the world / are so stuck in your God-based-morality paradigm that you can’t see there are other reasons to be nice.

BillT, See my @181

BillT, then go ahead. I’m not a big fan of kids anyway.

J.,

You need to tell the highly educated white males who travel abroad to purchase children *why* they are at fault for doing so.

That really happens, and your evading the issue of the explanatory trail within one’s own moral ontology. Do you have a metaphysic to show us which has such a trail which has a terminus in love’s egalitarian self-giving?

Highly educated men do this with children.

It’s not semantics.

It’s reality.

As Tom already pointed out.

So J. has no reply for those highly educated white males…….

How unfortunate…..

“Whatever makes you feel good…” seems to be the end of it for J.

Do it until it doesn’t make you feel good….. if that day never comes, well then keep it up!

Ultimately, Bill, it will likely be unfulfilling. There are things that humans find fulfilling — such as good relationships with others, meaningful work, a feeling of safety, belonging etc. If you want more of those things then torturing kids probably won’t help. If you don’t – and it’s possible some people don’t – then go ahead and torture kids. But don’t be surprised if you life becomes pretty grim pretty quickly.

You do remember Jeanette that this was a thought experiment, not a confession. You still can’t offer any reasons why though, can you? And the above sounds more than a little like you’re trying to insult me.

But just so you know that I’m not making this up some thoughts from someone who has really thought about and lived out this kind of life that contradict your above.

Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value judgments,” that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either “right” or “wrong”….I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable “value judgment” that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these “others”? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as “moral” or “good” and others as “immoral” or “bad”? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me—after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.

-Ted Bundy

Tom @191,

I think you’re misunderstanding my point. It’s not that evolution provides moral reasons. It’s just that having gone through the process of evolution we feel those things. We can’t help it. And there are good reasons why that has happened.

Tom @197,

OK, well, I’m not claiming that we have free will in the way you express it. I think we may have the illusion of free will as you define it, but not the actuality. Personally, I don’t care that it may be an illusion. It feels like free will and that’s all that matters to me.

Tom, BillT

All – or maybe almost all – humans share similar natural desires and have discovered more or less reliable strategies to achieve them and help others to achieve them. Why do you feel the need to have “reasons” to act that go beyond trying to achieve our human desires?

I don’t feel that need at all and have lived a perfectly happy life on the whole.

Billions of people around the world do live largely satisfying lives that are much healthier, securer and longer then our ancestors. We can still improve a lot of course.

By the way the USA has its own problems with poverty. In any case, financial riches don’t necessarily correlate with human desires for love, belonging, security, etc.

Good and bad are relative to a goal. Without knowing the goal, the words are meaningless. I suggest a goal of making human lives fulfilling. Now we can assess whether an action is good or bad.

Where does this conflict with any actions you consider good or bad?

You know when it’s baking hot and you look at the horizon and you see water shimmering in the distance. But when you reach the place you saw the water you find it was just a mirage.

You could explain this feature of reality by inventing supernatural water nymphs who bask in the sunlight on hot days under the guidance of their watery overlord. Or you can believe there’s a natural way it could happen without requiring you to invent a host of supernatural beings. Perhaps your mind thinks it sees water, but it’s being deceived.

What? No! The nymphs explain it without having to deny your own perceptions. They must be the correct explanation.

Senses certainly are not infallible.

But it’s irrelevant.

Why?

Because the same ontological substrate needed to have inherent intentionality and inherent good (and thus ought) is the same rock-bottom substrate needed to have inherently intentional reasoning and thereby the rational.

The sacrifice of reason itself is, of course, a price the Non-Theist is willing to pay. How he pulls it off is a mystery as he cannot reason himself into or out of any locus whatsoever.

Not actually.

“God did it” is nowhere claimed. It is not the stuff of “gaps” which ruins all of the Non-Theist’s hopes, but, rather, it is the many corridors painfully constituted of unavoidable reductio ad absurdums, plural. There is no need to appeal to God. Nor to Gaps. Simply avoiding absurdity is enough to guide reason out of the Non-Theist’s autohypnosis.

“It would be an interesting experiment to observe what would happen if you were to say to someone: “Now, what I am saying is not to be taken as universally true, or even true in your case, but I wish you to accede to my request because it makes me feel better and serves my interests even if it does not serve yours.”

It would be akin to the Churchlands whom I mentioned earlier, admitting upfront that they had no minds but that they nonetheless wished — insofar as there was a ‘they’ that could ‘wish’ — had registered an impulse which caused them to try and modify your brain state and thus affect your behavior. Not that there was — as they would be the first to stipulate — any real “purpose” to it….” (by DNW)

One observation about the actual topic of the original opening piece is that we can give our children a proper context, or lens, in which to view Law/Moses.

The lens of the Imago Dei, the lens of Christ and the lens of God hating X while leaving X unchecked in Law/Moses (maneuvering around hardness of hearts, mindsets, and etc. which the OT and NT affirm), will equip our children with that particular game-changing set of definitions applied to *both* the ceremonial laws and the case laws of Law/Moses (too often ignored in Christian circles).

Also, the lens of the irreducibility of love’s egalitarian self-giving within the Christian’s moral ontology forcing *all* definitions will equip our children with another game-changing set of definitions (too often ignored in Christian circles).

Also, that I sin in some subtle way (or not subtle) pretty much daily, both against God and those I love, and against those who love me, and am yet, even still, found in Christ, will equip them with yet another game-changing set of definitions (too often ignored in Christian circles).

None of them are new of course. They’ve been there the whole time. From A to Z.

Objective morals exist and are contingent upon the agreement that subjectively human well being is important. (Jonathon, #170)

This must be some kind of record. The author self contradicts himself not once, not twice but three times in the same sentence. That’s special.

So I’m short one contradiction, BillT. You’ll have to help me out here!

“Objective morals exist and are contingent(1) upon the agreement(2) that subjectively(3) human well being is important.”

Maybe I’m double counting there but there seem to be three qualifications that somehow add up to objectivity. I’m glad to go with your two though, Tom. Seems enough.

“Good and bad are relative to a goal. Without knowing the goal, the words are meaningless. I suggest a goal of making human lives fulfilling.” -Jeanette

That’s right Jeanette. Ted Bundy’s goal was to make his life as fulfilling as he could get away with. I guess you would say his life was good?

Tom @213

Mirages and imaginary water nymphs disappear on a closer look. For free will it’s exactly the opposite. For free will to “disappear” you have to distance yourself from it, look away from it, intentionally try to ignore it. The parallelism you think exists, doesn’t.

That story wasn’t supposed to be an exact analogy, it was to try to give you an idea of the thinking processes behind my ideology. It was aimed at addressing your #209:

You’re overlooking your own most immediate experience of reality in order to satisfy the demands of an ideology.
That makes no sense to me.

Sometimes our immediate experiences of reality are not correct.

It is also extremely difficult to relate micro to macro effects. A block of wood seems solid and still, but when you look closely – very closely – you find it’s full of holes and made of atoms subject to quantum physics. It’s solidity is an illusion. An illusion that so fits with our immediate experience of reality, we’ve only recently discovered it’s not true.

Similarly while looking at the atomic level, it’s virtually impossible to imagine that a block of wood will be the result of this particular arrangement of atoms, and even harder to predict how it will behave when you hit yourself over the head with it. That doesn’t mean macro effects don’t happen though.

Just because it’s hard (for you) to imagine that material could give rise to free will (or the illusion of it), does not mean that it cannot happen. Until it’s shown to be false or that another explanation has overwhelming evidence to support it, I believe we should say the issue is unresolved. Anything else would be premature. I’m quite happy saying “I don’t know” when I don’t know. I don’t feel a need to say “I know” when I don’t.

I guess we have a different definition of “know”. Mine requires strong evidence that can be checked and invalidated by even the most skeptical. Even then the knowledge is tentative.

Question begging equals non-theistic ethics:

Non-Theists can only run to the appeal of biological flourishing and thereby beg the question as that’s as much as their rock-bottom substrate will allow.

Fincke (an Atheist) also makes an attempt:

“Teleology should not be at all out of bounds for atheists. Teleologists do not need to posit that there is an intelligent goal-giver who gives natural beings purposes to fulfill, as many theists think….. I am an atheistic virtue ethicist requiring no divine agency for the teleological dimensions of my ethics to make minimal sense and have minimal coherence. I am just describing purely naturalistically occurring patterns as universals or forms. I am saying that since humans’ very natures are constituted by a specific set of powers, fulfilling them is incumbent on humans as the beings that we are. It is irrational and a practical contradiction to destroy the very precondition of our own being (all things being equal). We have a rational imperative instead to flourish maximally powerfully according to the powers which constitute us ourselves……” (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/07/atheistic-teleology.html)

Some more question begging in the Non-Theist’s dive into goal-seeking ethics are unpacked a little further at http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-second-exchange-with-keith-parsons.html

Love’s categorical imperative being absent within the Non-Theist’s ontological substrate, such question begging is, simply, unavoidable in that paradigm’s attempts at the nature of and substrate of ethics.

On Bears and Kings, a bit more: https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/bears.cfm

“But how are we to know that these are servants of the temple? Most translations describe them as children or young men.

The word Hebrew translated here as “children” (na’ar) often means official or servant and doesn’t necessarily even refer to age at all. Mephibosheth’s servant Ziba is referred to as na’ar (2 Samuel 16:1), yet he has fifteen sons. The man that Boaz has positioned as boss over his fieldworkers is na’ar—not a position one grants to children (Ruth 2:5-6). The word na’ar is translated as “servant” over fifty times (roughly a fifth of the times it appears in Scripture).

Not only were these men servants of……..”

RobertNotBob,

I’m not defining it.

RobertNotBob

See #194, for Ted Bundy’s own description of what he wanted:

…to become truly free, truly unfettered…

But his tactics led to the opposite.

(How do you explain meaning and purpose as an atheist? Answer in half the words I used asking the question if you can. But don’t, really, that would be changing the subject. I’m just illustrating the point.)

Dear Sir – congratulations on a thoughtful blog, worth reading. While I am not an atheist (being what people nowadays call a “nothing”), I have atheist friends and will attempt to answer for them. The short answer is: truth, goodness, and beauty are sublime and worthy ideals which can give us something to aim for. Wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage are worthy virtues which make us better people. In general we do well by doing good. Altruism is better than chocolate (not really, nothing beats chocolate.)

To steal from Nicomachean Ethics, “…do our utmost to live in accordance with what is highest within us.”

Based on my brief visit to your blog, you seem to be an excellent Ambassador for conservative Christianity.

best wishes

Non-Theists seem to think that simply agreeing with Christianity is enough.

Obviously it isn’t.

It’s nice that the Non-Theist agrees with the Christian’s explanatory trail when it comes to love’s egalitarian self-giving, to love’s interfaces of reciprocity.

However, that he pulls up short of justification is obvious, and, in this forum, disappointing.

He just keeps equating good/evil and desirable/undesirable given the terms he has embraced here within his own casually closed paradigm. He just keeps offering terms and definitions and speaking “As-If” good and evil are finally, or ultimately, or “cosmically” the same, “As-If” desirable and undesirable are the same.

He just keeps presenting his paradigm’s “Metaphysical Armistice” wherein all sentences sum to unity amid “converging equals”.

As-If that is how reality actually works.

But reality does not work that way.

And all his own moral sonnets serve simply to affirm that he in fact knows that reality does not work that way, the way his causally closed paradigm forces him to concede.

We know there are things that really are good and lovely, that there really are things that are less good and less lovely.

As we’ve seen so far in this thread, the Non-Theist keeps agreeing with us and then simply pulls up short of reasoning through his own terms as he falls into a rather circular dance with what amounts to, “….we take actions because of our own feelings, and those feelings fuel our own reasons, and the reasons those reasons are good reasons are because we feel they are good….”

The Non-Theist’s agreement with the definitions of the Christian paradigm’s metaphysical root of love’s egalitarian self-giving are fine, as noted here:

“………it is *not* quite right to claim that there can be *no* justification of morality if atheism were true; or at least, what (probably) most people understand by that claim is, in my view, false……… Crude divine command theories [also] get morality wrong. They get God wrong too……” (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-second-exchange-with-keith-parsons.html)

The Non-Theist’s agreement with the definitions of the Christian paradigm continue as Fincke (an Atheist) makes the same sort of attempts as we’ve seen in this thread:

“Teleology should not be at all out of bounds for atheists. Teleologists do not need to posit that there is an intelligent goal-giver who gives natural beings purposes to fulfill, as many theists think….. I am an atheistic virtue ethicist requiring no divine agency for the teleological dimensions of my ethics to make minimal sense and have minimal coherence. I am just describing purely naturalistically occurring patterns as universals or forms. I am saying that since humans’ very natures are constituted by a specific set of powers, fulfilling them is incumbent on humans as the beings that we are. It is irrational and a practical contradiction to destroy the very precondition of our own being (all things being equal). We have a rational imperative instead to flourish maximally powerfully according to the powers which constitute us ourselves….” (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/07/atheistic-teleology.html )

But agreeing with the Christian isn’t enough.

The Non-Theist will have to do more.

As the linked threads unpack, one must be willing to embrace reality as she actually is if one means to actually, factually, love one another.